1945 Heavy fighting in Surabaya between Indonesian nationalists and returning colonialists after World War II, is celebrated as Heroes' Day (Hari Pahlawan).
1949 Indonesian National Revolution: The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence.
1950 Indonesia is admitted to the United Nations.
1950 Indonesia joins the United Nations.
1955 Twenty-nine nations meet at Bandung, Indonesia, for the first Asian-African Conference.
1957 Sukarno expels all Dutch people from Indonesia.
1961 Indonesia invades Netherlands New Guinea.
1965 General Suharto crushes an attempted coup in Indonesia.
1966 Suharto takes over from Sukarno to become President of Indonesia.
1967 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
1975 The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.
1975 Indonesia invades East Timor.
1976 History of East Timor: East Timor is annexed, and becomes the 27th province of Indonesia.
1979 Indonesia is hit with an earthquake that measures 8.1 on the Richter scale.
1991 An Indonesian military transport crashes after takeoff from Jakarta killing 137.
1991 Dili Massacre, Indonesian forces open fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor.
1997 A Garuda Indonesia Airbus A-300 crashes near Medan, Indonesia, airport, killing 234.
1997 SilkAir Flight 185 crashes into the Musi River, near Palembang in Indonesia, killing 104.
1998 Race riots break out in Jakarta, Indonesia, where shops owned by Indonesians of Chinese descent are looted and women raped.
1999 Indonesia announces it will allow international peace-keepers into East Timor.
2001 Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia storm parliament and demand that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.
2001 SIEV-X, an Indonesian fishing boat en-route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sinks in international waters with the loss of 353 people.
2002 The independence of East Timor is recognized by Portugal, formally ending 23 years of Indonesian rule and 3 years of provisional UN administration (Portugal itself is the former colonizer of East Timor until 1976).
2003 A car bomb explodes in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta outside the Marriott Hotel killing 12 and injuring 150.
2004 Lion Air Flight 538 crash lands in Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia, killing 26.
2004 A 9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing over 250,000 people including over 1700 on a moving train
2005 The 2005 Sumatran earthquake rocks Indonesia, and at magnitude 8.7 is the second strongest earthquake since 1965.
2005 Australian Schapelle Corby is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in Kerobokan Prison for drug smuggling by a court in Indonesia.
2005 Massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people.
2005 Mandala Airlines Flight 091 crashes into a heavily-populated residential of Sumatra, Indonesia, killing 104 people on board and at least 39 persons on ground.
2007 Adam Air Flight 574 disappears over Indonesia with 102 people on board.
2009 Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails, killing at least 99 people.