Language/Polish/Culture/Poland-Timeline

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Historical Timeline for Poland - A chronology of key events
Poland-Timeline-PolyglotClub.png

Poland-Timeline-PolyglotClub.jpg

Poland Timeline[edit | edit source]

Date Event

The Piast[edit | edit source]

966 Prince Mieszko I converts to Christianity. This gesture marks the founding of the Polish state.
992 Death of Mieszko I. His son Boleslas I the Valiant (Bolesław Chrobry) was recognized as the first king of Poland (992-1025).
1138-1320 Period of territorial fragmentation.
1226 The Teutonic Knights settle in Poland.
1241 The Tatars invade Poland and part of eastern Europe.
1320 After a period of break-up, Ladislas the Short (Władysław Łokietek) is recognized as King of Poland by the other European kingdoms.
1333-1370 Reign of Casimir III the Great (Kazimierz Wielki), one of the most illustrious kings of Poland, the last king of the Piast.
1364 Foundation of the University of Cracow (Jagiellona University). Many European kings and heads of state gather in Krakow for the International Congress of Kings where the famous banquet of Mikolaj Wierzynek takes place. A key moment in the development of Poland's relations with Europe.

The Jagiellons[edit | edit source]

1385 Union of Poland and Lithuania through the marriage of Hedwige d'Anjou (Jadwiga), Queen of Poland and Jagiełło, Grand Duke of Lithuania.
1410 Polish and Lithuanian forces defeat the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg).
16th century Golden age of Poland and Lithuania, with political stability which allowed economic prosperity and the development of the arts. At that time, the kingdom had more Jews than all the other countries in Europe combined.
1543 Copernicus publishes Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.
1569 The Treaty of Lublin strengthens the union with Lithuania.
1572 The Jagiellonian dynasty dies out; then begins an era of elective monarchy. The future king, Henri III of France, will occupy this post before returning to Paris in 1574 to reign there.

The United Republic of Poland-Lithuania[edit | edit source]

1655-1666 "The Flood", Swedish invasion.
1683 King Jean Sobieski leads the siege of Vienna against the Ottomans.
1700-1723 Poland is attached to Russia under the reign of Tsar Peter the Great.
1764 Stanislas Auguste Poniatowski is elected last king of Poland-Lithuania thanks to the support of Catherine II of Russia.
1772 First partition of Poland between Russians, Prussians and Austrians, who cut the country by a third of its area.
May 3, 1791 Constitution signed by the patriots who restore the hereditary monarchy and reform the political system.
1792 The Confederation of Targowica calls for foreign intervention. Second partition of Poland.
1794 Rebellion against Russia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko.
1795 Third partition of Poland between Russians, Prussians and Austrians.

The shares[edit | edit source]

1807-1815 Grand Duchy of Warsaw established by Napoleon I. Russian occupation from 1813.
1815-1864 Kingdom of Congress.
1820-1855 Romantic era of Polish culture with Mickiewicz and Chopin.
1830-1831 November revolt against the Russian occupier which fails.
1863-1864 January insurrection in the areas occupied by the Russians.

World War I[edit | edit source]

1914-1918 First World War at the end of which Poland regains its independence and recovers territories on its three neighbors to create the Second Republic, led by Józef Piłsudski until 1922.
1919-1921 War against Soviet Russia. The Poles "reclaim" territories lost in the 18th century.
1926 Józef Piłsudski returns to power and establishes the Sanacja government which will rule the country until 1939.

The Second World War[edit | edit source]

1939 On September 1, World War II begins with the German attack on Poland. The Polish armed forces are defeated and the government of General Sikorski takes refuge in London.
1940-1941 The USSR incarcerates 1.5 million Poles in labor camps.
1941-1944 All of Poland is under German domination. The resistance movements are active, but Poland is the country in which the major part of the Holocaust is operated.
1943 The discovery of the Katyń massacre causes the rupture between the USSR and the Polish government in exile. Uprising and massacre in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw.
August 1, 1944 Warsaw Uprising, without Soviet support. Real massacre. Hitler orders the city to be razed to the ground.
1945 The Red Army occupies Poland and establishes a communist-dominated coalition government.

Communist regime[edit | edit source]

1947 After the elections, the Communists consolidate their position as a single party.
1947-1949 Sovietization of the Polish economy, nationalization of industry and business, criticism of religious organizations and imprisonment of opposition leaders.
1948-1956 The Stalinist period is hard for Poland. The Constitution is copied from that of the USSR, collectivized agriculture.
1955 Signature of the Warsaw Pact in the Polish capital, which establishes a military alliance between all the countries of the Communist bloc.
1956 The demonstrations in Poznań are suppressed and 76 people are killed. Władysław Gomułka is appointed head of the country. He announces reforms to liberalize the system.
1970 Inflation provokes suppressed riots in Gdańsk. Gomułka resigns.
1970-1980 Edward Gierek is at the head of the Communist Party. Its restrictive policy only intensifies strikes and demonstrations, some of which are severely repressed.
1978 Karol Wojtyła is elected pope and takes the name of John Paul II.
1979 Visit of Pope John Paul II to Poland.
1980 Demonstrations in the Gdańsk shipyard, signing of the Gdańsk agreements with the authorities, which allow the shipyard workers to organize themselves around the Solidarność union, chaired by Lech Wałęsa.
1980-1981 Solidarność (Solidarity) exists legally, and challenges communist power.
1981 General Wojciech Jaruzelski takes the head of the Communist Party, declares a state of war, establishes martial law, and jails the leaders of Solidarity, Lech Wałęsa at the head.
1983 Lech Wałęsa receives the Nobel Peace Prize.
1984 Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, in favor of Solidarity, is assassinated by the political police.
1985-1988 Period of gradual liberalization which corresponds to the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR.

Fall of Communism and Third Republic[edit | edit source]

1988 Demonstrations and strikes which push Jaruzelski to discuss with the opposition.
1989 The Round Table makes it possible to distribute power between the Communists and Solidarity, which wins all the seats in the legislative elections.
August 1989 Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Prime Minister of the post-communist era, forms a coalition government.
December 1990 Lech Wałęsa is elected President of the Republic by universal suffrage, the first of the post-communist era. Birth of the Third Republic.
November 14, 1990 Germany (FRG) recognizes the Oder-Neisse line, the border with Poland, and abandons any possible claim on what was its territory before the war. The sovereignty of Poland is therefore guaranteed.
April 28-29, 1991 Tripartite meeting of Polish, German and French foreign ministers to create the Weimar Triangle agreements.
July 1991 The Warsaw Pact is dissolved. Comecon follows shortly.
October 1991 After the legislative elections, Jan Olszewski is chosen as Prime Minister.
February 1992 Anti-abortion law passed by parliament.
December 1995 Lech Wałęsa is defeated in the presidential elections and replaced by Aleksander Kwaśniewski.
1996 Poland is admitted to the OECD.
October 1997 New democratic constitution adopted after the September elections.
January 1998 Abolition of the death penalty.
March 12, 1999 Poland joins NATO.
October 8, 2000 Aleksander Kwaśniewski was re-elected for a second 5-year term in the first round, with 53.90% of the vote.
2000 Krakow is designated as the cultural capital of Europe.

Poland since 2000[edit | edit source]

7-8 June 2003 Referendum proposed to the Poles to vote for the country's entry into the EU (77.45% voted for enlargement).
May 9, 2003 Summit of the Weimar Triangle in Wroclaw, Poland (Jacques Chirac, Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Gerhard Schroeder).
May 1, 2004 Poland's entry into the European Union.
January 27, 2005 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which brought together 10,000 people, including some 20 senior leaders and, probably for the last time, the former prisoners of the camp and the soldiers of the Red Army who have released.
April 2, 2005 Death of Pope John Paul II. The news of his death caused considerable emotion in Poland and around the world.
September 25, 2005 Parliamentary elections in Poland. The victory of PiS, a right-wing conservative party ushers in a period of conservative politics: strengthened powers of the church, laws disadvantaging former members of the communist system, anti-European rhetoric, Christian and moral values ​​imposed on the school.
October 9 and 23, 2005 Presidential elections. The victory of Lech Kaczyński, candidate of PiS. His twin brother Jarosław Kaczyński becomes Prime Minister.
October 21, 2007 PiS loses the legislative elections to the Citizen's Platform of Donald Tusk (liberal right), which abolishes the reforms of his predecessor, sets up a pro-European policy, morally and economically liberal.
2009 With the global economic crisis, thousands of Poles return to Poland, leaving the countries where they worked, especially Great Britain. Part of it is a skilled workforce.
April 10, 2010 Death of President Lech Kaczyński during the air disaster in Smolensk, Russia.
August 6, 2010 Bronislaw Komorowski of the Citizen's Platform, elected president opposite Lech's brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski, takes office.
June 2012 Co-organizer of Euro 2012 with Ukraine, Poland becomes the center of Europe and one of the centers of the world during the competition it hosts in 4 cities: Warsaw, Gdańsk, Poznań and Wrocław.
April-May 2014 Announced in 2013, the canonization of Pope John Paul II (and that of Pope John XXIII) materializes on April 27 with a solemn religious ceremony in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican. Blessed John Paul II is therefore officially declared a saint of the Catholic Church. As a symbol, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, last president of communist Poland (1981-1989), died barely a month later, on May 25.
August-September 2014 Donald Tusk becomes the second President of the European Council. Ewa Kopacz replaces him as head of government.
2015 In May, Andrzej Duda, of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, becomes the new president of the country. In October, Droit et Justice won the legislative elections. Beata Szydło (PiS) is the new President of the Council of Ministers.
October 2016 A bill completely prohibiting the voluntary termination of pregnancy has sparked unprecedented female mobilization. After three days of protests, the Polish deputies definitively reject the text.
December 2016 A serious political crisis is sweeping the country. The voted budget is controversial and the rights of the press are limited. Huge demonstrations take place.
July 2017 Social tension does not abate following the vote, by the deputies, of a controversial reform of the supreme court. The rule of law is threatened and the Poles take to the streets. A situation which worries the whole of Europe.
July 2018 While the state does not seem to waver, the European Commission decides to launch an emergency infringement procedure against Warsaw, sending a "letter of formal notice" following the highly contested judicial reform .
November 2018 As the country tries to rewrite its history by erasing certain traces, a nationalist march on the occasion of the centenary of Polish independence brings together 200,000 people in Warsaw. Formerly assimilated to the extreme right, it is taken over by the conservative party in power. President Duda, at its head, worries Europe and the world by his statements.

Sources[edit | edit source]

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Being Poland - Encounters with Polish Literature - S1E1 - YouTube[edit | edit source]

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