Tel Aviv - Below are the key dates in Israel's history.

November 29, 1947 - The UN General Assembly Resolution 181 recommends Palestine to be partitioned into separate Jewish and Arab states, and Jerusalem to be internationalized. Jewish authorities in Palestine accept the resolution; Arab states reject it. Fighting begins between local Arabs and Jews.

May 14, 1948 - David Ben Gurion proclaims Israel's independence, one day before the formal end of the British Mandate over Palestine. The new country is immediately recognized by the United States, followed, some days later, by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

May 15, 1948 - Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia declare war on the new state and invade it. The war lasts until mid-1949. Israel emerges with 50 per cent more territory than allocated to it under the UN partition plan.

May 31, 1948 - The Israel Defence Force (IDF) is founded by uniting separate Jewish militias into one army.

1948 - Israel's first census finds a population of 872,700 - 716,000 Jews and 156,000 non-Jews. Most of the country's Arabs have already fled.

1948 - Massive immigration to the new state begins.

January 21 1949 - Elections are held for the first Knesset. David Ben Gurion, who headed the provisional government, becomes prime minister.

February 1949 - Chaim Weizmann is elected the country's first president. His role will be ceremonial.

April 1949 - Rationing, which will last until 1959, is introduced.

May 11, 1949 - Israel is admitted to the UN as 59th member.

November 9, 1949 - Yigal Yadin, son of the archaeologist instrumental in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, becomes IDF chief of staff at the age 32. Yadin will follow in his father's footsteps after retiring from the military at age 35, and become the country's best-known archaeologist, most famous for the excavations at the ancient Jewish fortress of Masada.

December 13, 1949 - The Israeli government declares Jerusalem to be Israel's capital and decides to hold Knesset sessions in West Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli jurisdiction since the end of the war.

July 5, 1950 - The Law of Return is passed, allowing Jewish immigrants to Israel to claim automatic citizenship.

September 1951 - Israel begins draining the Huleh valley, north of the Sea of Galilee. The project to make swamp land arable lasts until 1958.

July, 1952 - Israel participates in the Olympic Games for the first time. Its athletes will not win an Olympic medal until Barcelona, 40 years later.

September 10, 1952 - Israel and Germany sign a reparations agreement in Luxembourg.

December 8, 1952 - Yitzhak Ben Zvi is elected Israel's second president, replacing Weizmann, who died on November 9. An offer to Albert Einstein to assume the Israeli presidency had been turned down.

December 7, 1953 - Ben Gurion resigns as prime minister and minister of defence. Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett assumes the premiership.

November 2, 1955 - Ben Gurion becomes premier again.

October 29, 1956 - In an operation pre-planned with Egypt and France, Israel launches the Sinai Campaign, ostensibly to clear the Sinai desert of guerrillas.

Israel begins building a nuclear reactor, using French technology, in the town of Dimona, in the Negev desert.

July 1959 - Riots break out in the Haifa suburb of Wadi Salib, sparking demonstrations elsewhere in Israel in protest of the perceived discrimination against Jews of North African and Middle Eastern origin ("Sephardim") by the establishment. The issue of discrimination against Sephardic jews continues to fester for years.

1960 - The Israeli population reaches 2.150.000, 89 per cent of whom are Jews.

May 23, 1960 - Adolf Eichman, one of the main architects of the Nazi genocide against the Jews during World War II, is apprehended by Israeli agents in Argentina and secreted back to Israel to stand trial. On December 11, 1961 he is found guilty of crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people. He is sentenced to death by hanging four days later.

June 16, 1963 - Ben Gurion resigns the premiership, this time for good. He is succeeded by Levi Eshkol.

January 5, 1964 - Pope Paul VI makes an 11-hour visit to Israel, during which he does not utter the name of the host country. Israel and the Vatican establish diplomatic relations only in 1994. In March 2000, Pope John Paul II makes an official visit to Israel during which he prays at Christian and Jewish holy sites.

December 10, 1966 - Author Shmuel Yosef Agnon is awarded the country's first Nobel Prize, sharing the Nobel literature award with Nelly Sachs.

June 5-10, 1967 - Six Day War. In a pre-emptive strike, Israel effectively destroys the Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces. By the time the ceasefire is declared, Israel has defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and occupies the Sinai desert and the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

May 2, 1968 - Regular public television transmission begins in Israel.

March 7, 1969 - Gold Meir becomes Prime Minister following the death of Levi Eshkol.

1970 - Israel's population reaches 3,022,700, 85.4 per cent of whom are Jews.

September 5, 1972 - Black September terrorists murder 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Israel launches a systematic manhunt for the killers.

October 6, 1973 - Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack along the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights. After heavy initial losses, Israel rallies. When fighting ends on October 24, Israeli troops are on the Egyptian side of the Suez canal and deep in Syria.

April 10, 1974 - Golda Meir and her government resign, following fierce public criticism of the handling of the prelude to the recent war. Yitzhak Rabin, IDF chief of staff during the 1967 war, becomes prime minister.

July 3-4 - Israeli commandos mount the rescue of hostages held in Entebbe, Uganda, after their Air France flight was hijacked on July 1 while on route from Tel Aviv to Paris.

April 7, 1977 - Yitzhak Rabin resigns the premiership following allegations of foreign currency violations. Shimon Peres becomes premier until elections are held in May.

May 17, 1977 - The Likud Party, headed by Menahem Begin, wins the elections. It is the first time in Israel's history that the Labour Party, or one of its forerunners, is voted out of power.

November 19, 1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat arrives in Israel to address the Knesset. Sadat's visit - the first public official one to Israel by an Arab leader - ends Israel's regional isolation. After months of often-rocky negotiations, Israel and Egypt sign a peace treaty in March, 1979.

1980 - Israel's population reaches 3,921,000, 84 per cent of whom are Jews.

July 30, 1981 - The Knesset passes a law declaring united Jerusalem Israel's capital, in effect annexing occupied East Jerusalem.

June 7, 1981 - Israeli jets destroy an Iraqi nuclear reactor just as it is about to become operative.

December 14, 1981 - The Knesset passes a bill extending Israeli law to the Golan Heights, in effect annexing the territory.

June 6, 1982 - Israel launches the Operation Peace for Galilee. The ostensible plan calls for Palestinian guerillas to be pushed 40 kilometres from the border; it later transpires that Defence Minister Ariel Sharon had a far more embracing plan in mind, which involved a new government in Beirut.

September 13, 1984 - A National Unity government is formed after inconclusive elections, with Shimon Peres of the Labour Party holding the the premiership for two years, before handing over to Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir. The new government institutes an emergency economic plan which brings an end to three-digit inflation and stabilizes the economy.

December 8, 1987 - The First Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) erupts in Gaza Strip and quickly spreads to West Bank.

1990 - Israel's population stands at 4,821,000, 82 per cent of whom are Jews.

January 18, 1991 - Tel Aviv is bombarded by Iraqi Scud missiles following the outbreak of the first Gulf War. As the war progresses, more missiles strike elsewhere in the country.

June 23, 1992 - The Labour Party, under Yitzhak Rabin, wins Israeli elections. Rabin's government begins allocating less resources to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and more to infrastructure within Israel.

March 13, 1993 - Former Israel Air Force head Ezer Weizman follows in the footsteps of his uncle Chaim and is sworn in as president. The flamboyant former fighter pilot is forced to resign the presidency in 2000, after being implicated in a financial scandal.

September 13 - Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization sign the Oslo Declaration of Principles, agreeing to mutual recognition, Palestinian self-government, and to negotiations leading to an eventual Palestinian state alongside Israel.

October 26, 1994 - Israel, Jordan sign a peace treaty.

November 4, 1995 - Rabin is assassinated by ultra-nationalist Jew opposed to peace moves with the Palestinians. Shimon Peres succeeds him as premier.

May 29, 1996 - Right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu scores a narrow election victory over Shimon Peres, after promising peace and security, following a concerted suicide bombing campaign by Palestinian extremists. Negotiations with the Palestinians progress in fits and starts, but the momentum of the Rabin years is lost.

May 17, 1999 - Ehud Barak defeats Netanyahu in elections. He vows to accelerate peace moves, but he and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat are unable to agree on a peace deal at the July 2000 Camp David conference.

2000 - Israel's population reaches 6,2000,000.

July 31, 2000 - Likud Party legislator Moshe Katsav unexpectedly defeats veteran statesman Shimon Peres in the Knesset vote to elect a new president. Katsav is forced to resign in 2007, and Peres is elected to replace him.

September 28, 2000 - The Second Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) erupts.

Febraury 6, 2001 - Ariel Sharon is elected prime minister.

2007 - Israel's population stands at 7,150,000, 80 per cent of whom are Jews.

January 4, 2006 - Sharon suffers a severe stroke and is succeeded as premier by Ehud Olmert, who wins elections a few months later at the head of the centrist-right Kadima party.

July 12, 2006 - Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas stage cross-border raid, snatching two Israeli soldiers. Israel responds with a massive bombardment of Lebanon, and the Second Lebanon War begins, lasting until August 14.

November 27, 2007 - Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agree at a US-brokered peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to restart peace talks, with the aim of reaching a deal by the end of 2008. (dpa)