• June 26, 1960: British Somaliland gains independence. • July 1, 1960: Italian Somaliland gains independence and the two join to form the Somali Republic. • 1960: Aden Abdullah Osman Daar becomes Somalia’s first president, with Abdirashid Ali Shermarke as prime minister. • October 1969: Shermarke, now president, is shot dead in Las Anod. • October 1969: The army seizes power in a bloodless coup. • 1969: Mohamed Siad Barre becomes leader of a communist regime, the Somali Democratic Republic. • 1974: Somalia joins the Arab League. • 1976: The Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party is formed. • July 1977: The Ogaden War breaks out with Ethiopia. • March 1978: Somalia withdraws from the Ogaden War. • 1986: Barre suffers life-threatening injuries in a car crash. • 1991: Barre’s government falls under mounting political pressure from resistance groups. • 1991: The Somalian civil war begins. The conflict would later be described as a “genocide” by both UN secretary-general Boutros-Boutros Ghali and his envoy to Somalia. • 1992: UN peacekeepers enter Somalia. • 1995: UN peacekeepers withdraw from Somalia. • 2000: Transnational Government formed. • 2004: Transfederal Government is formed. • 2006: The Islamic Courts Union assumes control of much of the South of the country. • 2007: Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed re-enters Mogadishu, the first time the deferral government was in control of most of the country. • 2008: Al-Qaeda-linked militant group Al-Shabaab takes control of Baidoa • 2009: Al-Shabaab forces Ethiopian forces into retreat. • August 2011: All of Mogadishu is recaptured from Al-Shabaab. • June 2012: Kenyan forces assisting the Somali army are assimilated into the African Union Mission in Somali (AMISOM).