Political Timeline

1911
The dictatorship of Jose Porfirio Diaz is overthrown as political turmoil grows in the country. President Francisco Madero assumes power but is assassinated in 1913. Led by Emiliano Zapato in the south, and guerilla leader Francisco "Pancho" Villa in the north, Mexico's peasant and working classes rise up against the government, launching the Mexican Revolution.

1916
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson orders the capture of Pancho Villa. U.S. forces enter Mexico and conduct an unsuccessful manhunt.

1917
Under the leadership of President Venustiano Carranza, Mexico drafts a new constitution guaranteeing social rights and democracy.

1929
The National Revolutionary Party, later renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party, is formed by former President Plutarco Elias Calles. The party will lead Mexico for the next 71 years.

1929 to 1939
Hundreds of thousands of Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans are sent back to Mexico during the Great Depression through a forced repatriation program by the U.S. government.

1938
President Lazaro Cardenas nationalizes the energy industry seizing oil companies.

1939
The National Action Party is formed by Manuel Gomez Morin.

1940s
Mexico asks the United States to ease immigration restrictions on Mexican nationals.

1942
Mexico enters World War II, declaring war on Germany and Japan.

1946
The National Revolution Party becomes the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

1968
Mexican security forces open fire on 50,000 students gathered in Mexico City to rally for democracy. Estimates vary, but witnesses say hundreds are killed.

1973
The United States creates the Drug Enforcement Agency to help stem the flow of illegal narcotics entering the country from outside nations including Mexico.

1985
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake centered near Mexico City kills thousands.

1989
The Revolutionary Democratic Party, PRD, is formed.

1994
Mexico enters the North American Free Trade Agreement.

A group of Zapatista rebels, calling themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Front, or EZLN, declares war on the government in the southern state of Chiapas, fighting on behalf of Mexico's indigenous population and taking government officials and buildings hostage. The rebels, led by Subcomandante Marcos, are brutally suppressed by government forces. The rebels say they heavily oppose NAFTA.

Mexico enters a political crisis when PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated, and several members of President Carlos Salinas' cabinet resign in protest of the handling of the Chiapas crisis.

A second PRI candidate, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, steps in and is elected president.

1997
The PRI loses control of the lower house during parliamentary elections. It is the first time the party has suffered such heavy losses.

2000
Vicente Fox of the Alliance for Change, later renamed the National Action Party, or PAN, becomes the first opposition candidate to unseat the PRI when he wins the presidential election by 1 percent.

Fox's government begins talks with the Zapatistas, adhering to several of the rebel demands for additional rights for the indigenous people of Mexico.

2001
Fox begins investigations into the murders of hundreds of political activists during the 1970s and 1980s.

Congress passes a version of the indigenous rights bill, which is promptly rejected by the Zapatistas.

Zapatista rebels, including the elusive leader Subcomandante Marcos, begin Zapatour, a political march from the Lacandon jungle to the capital Mexico City to protest the treatment of indigenous Indians. The Zapatistas say they will renounce violence and begin participating in the political process.

2002
Roberto Madrazo becomes head of the PRI.

2003
Fox's PAN loses several seats to the PRI in state and national mid-term elections.

2006
Elections scheduled for July 2 pit three top candidates against each other: Felipe Calderon, PAN, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, PRD, and Roberto Madrazo, PRI. Calderon wins, in an election marked by fraud and contested by many.