Time line of Iraq

Pre-Saddam

 * 1) 1534 - 1918 - Region is part of the Ottoman Empire.
 * 2) 1917 - Britain seizes control during WW1 and creates state of Iraq in 1919.
 * 3) 1920 - Britain gets League of Nations approval and a offical mandate over the nation. The Arab nationalist rebellion known as the Great Iraqi Revolution against British rule. Some Kurds launch there own rebellion around Mosul and Kirkuk.
 * 4) 1921 - The Hashemite Prince Faysal, son of Hussein Bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, is crowned Iraq's first king. Iraq established its education system in 1921
 * 5) 1932 - Iraq becomes an independent state and joins the League of Nations.
 * 6) 1935–1936 - Iraqi Shia revolts.
 * 7) 1935 - Yazidi revolt.
 * 8) 1939-1945 - Iraq is neutral in World War II. Britain re-occupies Iraq until 1945 after a short, pro-Axis Powers rebellion in 1941.
 * 9) 1948 -Iraq joins the 1948 Palestine War.
 * 10) 1958 - 1958 Iraqi Revolution.
 * 11) 1959 - 1959 Mosul uprising. The 1 year old Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan breaks up.
 * 12) 1958 - The monarchy is overthrown in a military coup led by the socialist/Iraqi nationalist Brigadier Abd-al-Karim Qasim and Nasserite Colonel Abd-al-Salam Muhammad Arif. Iraq is then declared a republic under military rule.
 * 13) 1958-63 - Iraq says it officially wants a 22% corporate share in the Anglo-American Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) and a 55% shaire in it's profits.
 * 14) 1963 - Prime Minister Brig Qasim is ousted in a coup led by the Arab Socialist Baath Party (ASBP). Col Arif becomes president. The USA covertly backs the coup since they though he was a communist and in league with the USSR. Later that year he Baathist government is overthrown by Col Arif and a group of officers.
 * 15) 1966 - Col Arif is killed in a 'helicopter crash' (probably an act of sabotage by Baathist agents) on 13 April and his elder brother, Major-general Abd-al-Rahman Muhammad Arif, then succeeds him as president.
 * 16) 1967 - Iraq joins the Six-Day War.
 * 17) 1968 - A Baathist led-coup ousts Maj-Gen Arif. The Revolution Command Council (RCC) takes charge with General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr as chairman and country's president.
 * 18) Early 1970s - Education became public and free at all levels and mandatory at the primary level.
 * 19) 1972 - Iraq nationalises the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC).
 * 20) 1973 -Iraq joins thier Yom Kippur War.
 * 21) 1974 - Iraq grants limited autonomy to the often rebellious Kurdish region.

Saddam Hussein era

 * 1) 1979 - Saddam Hussein succeeds Gen Al-Bakr as president and rules through a mix of fear, personality and favoritism.
 * 2) 1980 - The pro-Iranian Dawah Party claims responsibility for a grenade and gun attack on Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, at the Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad.
 * 3) 1979 - Saddam Hussein becomes president.
 * 4) 1980-1988 - Iran-Iraq war and 1,000,000 die on both sides. Iran wrecks Basra, Iraq gasses Iranian troops, Iranian Arabs rebel and Iraqi Shi'ite rebel.
 * 5) 1981 June - Israel attacks an Iraqi nuclear research center at Tuwaythah near Baghdad in Operation Babylon. The USSR rebuilds it, but makes sure it can't make weapons grade plutonium since they also fear his unpredictable war policy.
 * 6) 1988 - Iraq gasses the Kurdish town of Halabjah, killing ~8,500.
 * 7) 1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait, putting it on a collision course with the international community and thus prompting what becomes known as the first Gulf War. A massive US-led military campaign forces Iraq to withdraw in February 1991. Oil well set alight by retreating Iraqi forces burns in background as Iraqi tank stands abandoned Iraq's army was crushed in 1991 Gulf War that followed the invasion of Kuwait. Several Arab nations including Egypt, the UAE, Syria and Saudi Arabia condemn Iraq, and the join in the liberation of Kuwait.
 * 8) 1991 - UNESCO reports that prior to the first Gulf War in 1991 Iraq had one of the best educational systems in the region. Iraq subjected to a UN run weapons inspection programme. Southern Shia and northern Kurdish populations, who were both encouraged by Iraq's defeat in Kuwait and false American promises of help rebel, prompting a brutal crackdown in which thousands die. Iraq is the subjected to sanctions, weapons inspections and 2 no-fly zones.
 * 9) 1993 - American forces launch a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad in retaliation for the alleged attempted assassination of US President George Bush in Kuwait during that April. Iran is concerned over Iraq's geo-political integrity and instability. People like George Galloway and Tony Benn begin to question the morality of the UN operations in Iraq, leading to Saddam becoming a Robin Hood like figure in the UK.
 * 10) 1995 - The UNSC Resolution 986 allows the partial resumption of Iraq's oil exports to buy food and medicine (the "oil-for-food programme").
 * 11) 1995 - Saddam Hussein wins a dubious referendum allowing him to remain president for another seven years.
 * 12) 1996 - After call for aid from the KDP's rebel fighters, Iraqi forces launch offensive into northern no-fly zone and capture Irbil. In responce the USA extends northern limit of southern no-fly zone to latitude 33 degrees north, just south of Baghdad. Iraq ends cooperation with UN Special Commission to Oversee the Destruction of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (Unscom).
 * 13) 1998 - After UN staff are evacuated from Baghdad, the US and UK launch a bombing campaign, "Operation Desert Fox", to destroy Iraq's suspected nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes.
 * 14) 1999 - Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, spiritual leader of the Shia community, is assassinated in Najaf. UNSC Resolution 1284 creates the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) to replace Unscom. Iraq rejects the resolution.

Post Saddam

 * 1) 2003 - 2014 A US-led coalition invades, starting years of guerrilla warfare, sectarian bombings and instability. The British Conservative Party uses the bloody fares for political gain and use it as part of a wider campaign to undermine the Labour goverment of Tony Blair.
 * 2) 2015 -

Also see

 * 1) Middle East
 * 2) Minerals and fuel in central Africa
 * 3) Mineral mining, smelting and shipping videos
 * 4) Yom Kippur War
 * 5) Six-Day War
 * 6) Suez Crisis
 * 7) 1948 Palestine war
 * 8) Iranian Revolution
 * 9) Palestine vs Israel
 * 10) 1970s energy crises
 * 11) 1953 Iranian coup d'état
 * 12) Iran-Iraq war

Links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14546763