A chronology of key events:

1936-39 - Spanish Civil War: more than 350,000 Spaniards killed.

Franco era

1939 - General Franco leads Nationalists to victory. Republicans are executed, jailed or exiled.

1946-50 - Franco regime ostracised by United Nations; many countries cut off diplomatic relations.

1955 - Spain re-admitted to UN.

1959 - ETA is founded with the aim of creating an independent homeland in Spain's Basque region. The full name of the organisation - Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna - means Basque Fatherland and Freedom.

1961 - ETA's violent campaign begins with an attempt to derail a train transporting politicians.

1968 - West African colony of Spanish Guinea is granted independence as Equatorial Guinea.

1973 December - Basque nationalists assassinate Prime Minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco in Madrid in retaliation for the government's execution of Basque militants.

Move to democracy

1975 20 November - Franco dies. Succeeded as head of state by King Juan Carlos. With Juan Carlos on the throne, Spain makes transition from dictatorship to democracy.

1977 June - first democratic elections in four decades.

1978 - New constitution confirms Spain as parliamentary monarchy. ETA's political wing, Herri Batasuna, is founded.

1980 - 118 people are killed in ETA's bloodiest year so far.

1981 February - Failed military coup.

1982 - Socialist government wins sizeable majority, after coup plot by right-wing extremists is discovered.

Spain joins NATO.

1986 - Spain joins EEC.

1992 - Summer Olympic Games held in Barcelona. Seville hosts Expo 92. Celebrations mark 500th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage to America.

Aznar years

1995 - Leader of opposition Popular Party Jose Maria Aznar survives car bomb blast.

1996 March - Jose Maria Aznar becomes prime minister following stability deal with moderate Catalan and Basque nationalists who hold balance of power after general election in which his Popular Party emerges as winner but fails to win an outright majority.

1997 July - ETA, demanding that Basque prisoners be transferred closer to home, kidnaps and kills Basque councillor Miguel Angel Blanco. Killing sparks national outrage and brings an estimated 6 million Spaniards onto the streets.

1997 December - 23 leaders of Herri Batasuna jailed for seven years for collaborating with ETA - the first time any members of the party have been jailed as a result of ETA links.

1998 April - Crops destroyed and wildlife wiped out when an iron pyrite mine reservoir belonging to a Canadian-Swedish company bursts its banks causing toxic waste spillage. Waterways feeding Europe's largest wildlife reserve, the Docana national park, are severely contaminated.

1998 September - ETA announces its first indefinite ceasefire since its campaign of violence began.

1999 November - ETA ends its ceasefire, blaming lack of progress in talks with the Spanish government.

2000 - Madrid car bombs mark return to violence.

Aznar's Popular Party (PP) wins landslide in general elections.

Relations with Britain strained after British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless docks for repairs in Gibraltar despite protests from environmentalists.

2001 Parliament grants political recognition to Republican guerrillas - known as the maquis - who continued resisting the nationalist dictator, General Francisco Franco, after the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939.

2002 January - Peseta replaced by Euro.

2002 June - ETA suspected of being behind bomb blasts in several tourist resorts as EU summit held in Seville.

The summit is also marked by a general strike by nearly a million people protesting at government moves to cut employment benefits.

2002 July - Morocco sends troops to counter alleged illegal activities on disputed rocky outcrop of Perejil off Moroccan coast. Spain sends forces to eject them and gunboats to guard its enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Spain pulls troops out after Spanish, Moroccan foreign ministers agree to restore status quo, leaving Perejil unoccupied.

2002 August - A court suspends the radical Basque separatist party Batasuna for three years because of its suspected links with ETA.

2002 November - Northwestern coastline suffers ecological disaster after oil tanker Prestige breaks up and sinks about 130 miles out to sea.

2003 March - Indefinite ban imposed on Basque separatist Batasuna party.

2003 May - 62 Spanish peacekeepers returning from duty in Afghanistan killed when their chartered Ukrainian plane crashes in Turkey.