Uganda - Country history and economic development

c. 1850. Arab traders make first non-African contact within the territory of Uganda and promote Islam.

1862. Explorer John Hanning Speke is the first European to enter Uganda.

1885. Uganda is designated as a British sphere of influence at the Treaty of Berlin.

1890. A small British military force arrives in Uganda.

1894. Britain declares Uganda a protectorate.

1962. Uganda achieves independence from Britain, and Milton Obote becomes prime minister in multi-party elections.

1971. General Idi Amin forcibly seizes power.

1972. The country's Asian population is expelled, and British companies are taken under government control.

1979. Tanzanian army with Ugandan dissidents under the banner of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) oust Idi Amin.

1980. Corrupt multi-party elections reinstate Milton Obote as president.

1986. National Resistance Army enters Kampala and forms a government as the National Resistance Movement (NRM), led by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.

1987. The NRM government adapts free market reform and starts to receive aid from the IMF and World Bank.

1998. Uganda starts its involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

2000. A flawed national referendum maintains the "no-party" political system.

2001. Presidential elections held in March.