Chronology of Bulgarian History

Chronology of the History of Bulgaria with dates.

7.000 – 2.000 years BC. Some groups of homo sapiens occupy Europe entering through the Balkan Peninsula, already then they lived in families.
2.000 – 1.100 years BC. Families form communities, their struggles and migrations were the origin of a new society: the Thracians. This group believed in the immortality of the soul and in life after death, was divided into tribes and worked in the fields and with the cattle. The chiefs of the Thracian tribes were buried in burial mounds. The Thracians were polygamous and by custom when the husband died, his favorite wife and his horse were sacrificed and buried next to him. Thracian civilization, saw Spartacus born, Orpheus and Dionysus.
600 years BC. The first Greek colonies were founded on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast: in what are currently Nessebar, Varna, Sozopol and others.
342 years BC. Philip of Macedon conquers Thrace, and was under their dominion during 50 years. It is the period when the Hellenic culture entered the region.
100 years BC. The Romans occupy the territory of Bulgaria and divide it in two: Thrace and Moesia, rapid city building begins, theaters, stadiums and aqueducts. From Roman times, for example, the Baths of Varna or the Plovdiv Theater survive..

Year 200 Several Protobulgarian tribes moved from Central Asia to the European continent, settling in the region between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.
Year 500 Slavic tribes arrived and absorbed the Thracian-Illyrian population. The Slavs were peaceful peasants and were organized in democratic communities.
Year 632 In the capital Phanagoria the khan Kubrat united all the proto-Bulgarian tribes residing in the Black Sea region, Azov Sea and Caspian Sea.
Year 651 After Kubrat's death, the country was divided among its 5 sons; one of them, khan Asparoukh, established the new proto-Bulgarian capital in Óngala, south of the mouth of the Danube.
Years 681 – 1018 First Bulgarian State. It was founded by Khan Asparoukh in the capital Pliska. It spread over territories north and south of the Danube and was recognized by Byzantium. Fruit of the alliance between the Slavs and the Proto-Bulgarians, it was the first Slavic state in history.
Years 700-718 . In 718 Arab cavalry entered the Byzantine Empire and threatened Bulgaria. The Khan Tervel defeated them and they renounced their intention to enter Europe through the Balkans..
Years 803-814 Khan Krum freed the Balkan Slavs from the repression of the Byzantium Empire. To the west he reached present-day Budapest to stop Charlemagne's advance. The Bulgarian army even besieged Constantinople, but without success.
Year 855 The enlightened Cyril of Slavic origin invents the first Cyrillic alphabet and together with his brother Methodius and his disciples he translates a large part of the Bible into this new alphabet..
Year 865 Prince Boris I (852-889) after many internal disputes established Christianity as the official religion. With Pope Nicholas I he discussed the possibility of imposing Catholicism on Bulgarians, but the Pope did not grant the independence of the Bulgarian Church, which the orthodox patriarch of Byzantium did, which led to the adoption of the Orthodox Christian religion.
893 – 927 Golden Age of Bulgaria: Simeon the Great provided the country with great cultural development, political and territorial, achieving a state with access to three seas - the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea. He was attacked as "Tsar of all Bulgarians and Byzantines". Moved the capital to Preslav. A disciple of the brothers Cyril and Methodius, founded the first Slavic university.
Year 971 The Byzantine Empire conquers the capital Preslav and Eastern Bulgaria. Years 976-1014 Is Samuel, expanded the borders to the South and West, and fixed the capital at Ohrid. After the defeat of Belásitsa, in 1014, Basilio II, emperor of Byzantium, ordered to put out the eyes of 15.000 Bulgarian soldiers, and legend has it that Tsar Samuíl died of shock upon seeing them.
Years 1018 – 1185 More than a century and a half of Byzantine rule.
Years 1185 – 1396 Second Bulgarian State, with capital in Veliko Tarnovo by the boyar brothers Asén and Pétar.
Years 1197-1207 Tsar Kaloyan restored power and frontiers prior to Byzantine rule. The army of the Fourth Crusade, was defeated near Adrianople (1204).
Years 1218-1241 Second Golden Age. With Tsar Ivan Asén II, the country achieved a new economic boost, political and cultural, and spread his power over all Thrace, Macedonia and Albania. His successors failed to hold the state together, the Tatars invaded from the north and the Serbs seized Macedonia.
Years 1277 The peasant Ivaylo leads the 1st peasant insurrection in Europe, managing to be King during 3 years.
Year 1393 Ottoman invasion and conquest of the capital Veliko Tarnovo.
Years 1396 – 1878 Ottoman rule. It is the hardest stage in the history of the country, economic development, political and social stops. Turkish rulers settle with Muslim settlers on the productive plains, while many of the locals are relegated to the mountains. Churches are destroyed, monasteries, large taxes are imposed, As in other areas occupied by the Ottomans, the so-called "blood tax" is imposed., by which the Ottoman army snatched young children from families to become the high-ranking soldiers of the Turkish troops, and send them as adults against their own Bulgarian compatriots, sometimes even from one's own family. Many uprisings were organized, but they were not successful. Christianity did not disappear thanks to the deep faith of the locals and isolated monasteries among the mountains like Rila., Bachkovo or the Troyan. Folklore bridged the Bulgarian culture of the 14th century and the romanticism of the 19th century. Despite the domination of the Ottoman rulers, at the local level there was some Bulgarian government capacity, the economy remained based on agriculture.
Years 1600-1700 The Ottoman Empire was weakened after the failed siege of Vienna and the wars against Austria and Russia. The consequence is that inflation and taxes increased. Products made in England easily entered the country, closing the traditional textile industry, of leather and iron.
Years 1700-1878 Bulgarian Renaissance, was characterized by the rise of crafts, of cultural life, the religious and political independence struggle.
Year 1762 Paisiy de Jilendar edited his book "Slavic-Bulgarian History", which is the 1st history of Bulgaria in modern language, its purpose was to promote national consciousness and religious and political independence. In the long period of Ottoman rule, Bulgarian consciousness was preserved in the language, folklore and in legends. During domination, the Greek Church assumed religious leadership and suppressed the independence of the Bulgarian Church. For that reason, the monks were champions of the national liberation movement.
Years 1800-1870 Bulgarian volunteers participated in the uprisings of Serbia and Greece against the Ottomans. Folklore and popular customs flourished in Bulgaria. The Turkish rulers tried to integrate the local population, allowed the first secular schools to open and the first books printed in Bulgarian. The alliance of France and England with Turkey in the Crimean War against Russia further delayed national independence.
Year 1870 After litigating 40 years for the recovery of the independence of the Bulgarian Church , the sultan was obtained to authorize the creation of 15 orthodox dioceses.
Years 1860-1873 The national idol, Vasil Levski, organized a network of revolutionary committees that to prepare the people for an insurrection and coordinate the struggles. He was caught by chance and hanged in 1873.
Year 1876 The "April Rising" exploded thanks to the revolutionary network, was repressed with unprecedented harshness, spreading throughout Europe stories (not all true) on the atrocities perpetrated by the Ottomans: 15.000 massacred people, 58 razed towns, etc. As a consequence of this news Russia, joined by Serbia and Romania, declared war on Turkey.
Years 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish war . It ended with the peace of San Stefano, signed on 3 March 1878, with which the Bulgarian State was reestablished. Russia suffered 200.000 casualties and stopped 50km from Istanbul. Turkey gave the 60% from the Balkan Peninsula to Bulgaria, but western powers, fearing of a powerful Russian ally in the Balkans, rejected the Treaty and promoted another, the one in berlin, by which they separated the territory south of the Balkan Mountains from Bulgaria, leaving it as an autonomous province of Turkey, called Rumelia. In the capital Veliko Tarnovo the new Constitution was adopted in 1879 declaring the state as a parliamentary monarchy. For the first prince the European powers elected Alejando de Battenberg.
Years 1879-1944 Bulgarian Third State. This stage underwent the change of several governments until arriving at the regime of Boris III.
Year 1885 The Principality of Bulgaria annexed the autonomous province of Rumelia.
Years 1886-1887 Prince Alexander of Battenberg was dethroned. Russia and England elected Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, that with the support of Vienna, London, Rome and Russia, focused on the reunification of the country.
Year 1908 Ferdinando declared the independence of Bulgaria, annulling the nominal dependence of Turkey and proclaiming himself czar of the Bulgarians.
Year 1912 First Balkan War. Bulgaria, together with its allies Serbia, Romania and Greece, Turkey attacks, that losing the war finally accepted the cession of its European territories.
Year 1913 Second Balkan War: the Allied War. The allies in the First Balkan War could not reach agreements on the distribution of the territories ceded by Turkey and they faced each other and with Turkey itself again. After the defeat in Bucharest the country lost power over Macedonia, whose territory was divided between Serbia and Greece, and also lost a prosperous region of northern Bulgaria south of the Danube to Romania. First national catastrophe.
Years 1914-1918 Bulgaria entered the First World War, allied to Germany with the intention of recovering the lands lost in the Allied War, what the second national catastrophe nevertheless assumed, losing even more land. In 1918 Ferdinando abdicated in favor of his son Boris III, fleeing to Vienna with 2 full treasure trains.
Years 1918-1942 Reign of Boris III, last king of Bulgaria. The young king tried to settle the country after the two national catastrophes. Under his reign, in 1920 the government of the Agrarian Party was established in power, which carried out several reforms for democracy but the 9 June 1923 a coup put an end to this government. That same year communists and followers of the Agrarian Party organized an uprising but were unsuccessful.. In 1934 began the Boris regime that tried to take the governorship in a flexible way.
Years 1939-1944 Bulgaria allied with Germany during World War II. It was the only axis state that refused to send its Jewish population to the death camps.. Nor did he send soldiers to fight and was limited to having German bases and supplying Germany during the war..
Year 1944 The Soviet army invades the country supported by the Patriotic Front and the local Communist Party and thus ends the pro-Nazi regime.
Year 1946 After a referendum the country became a "people's republic".
Year 1947 The United States and England recognized the communist government and the republic. The nationalization of the lands began. The Soviet model of industrialization and state cooperatives was followed, operating in a planned economy in five-year.
Years 1954-1989 Todor Zhívkov served as Prime Minister and Secretary of the Communist Party. Bulgaria was one of the best allies of the USSR. In 1955 entered the United Nations Organization. At the end of the communist period the cultivation of small private plots was granted.
Year 1989 The Soviet "Perestroika" causes the replacement of Zhivkov of both positions.
Since the year 1990 The period of democracy and transition to a market economy began that has not ended yet. The return of private lands began, privatization of state assets and promotion of private initiative. Left and right governments alternated, of which none managed to finish their mandate.
Year 2004 Bulgaria becomes a member of NATO.
Year 2007 Enter the 1 January in the European Union. The European Treaty of Lisbon signed in 2007 agreed to Bulgaria the right to call the euro “evro” to adapt the name to the Cyrillic alphabet.

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