These are used in formal situations when you know the person's first name.
Also in informal situations to acquaintances, friends and even to your own family members.
Ottoman Empire
1453 - Sultan Mehmed II captures Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire and consolidating Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor and Balkans.
15th-16th centuries - Expansion into Asia and Africa.
1683 - Ottoman advance into Europe halted at Battle of Vienna. Long decline begins.
19th century - Efforts at political and economic modernisation of Empire largely founder.
1908 - Young Turk Revolution establishes constitutional rule, but degenerates into military dictatorship during First World War, where Ottoman Empire fights in alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
1918-22 - Partition of defeated Ottoman Empire leads to eventual triumph of Turkish National Movement in war of independence against foreign occupation and rule of Sultan.
Modern Turkey
1923 - Grand National Assembly declares Turkey a republic and Kemal Ataturk president.
1928 - Turkey becomes secular: clause retaining Islam as state religion removed from constitution.
1938 - President Ataturk dies, succeeded by Ismet Inonu.
1945 - Neutral for most of World War II, Turkey declares war on Germany and Japan, but does not take part in combat. Joins United Nations.
1950 - First free elections won by opposition Democratic Party.
Kurdish war
1984 - Turkey recognises "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus."
Kurdistan Workers' Party launches separatist guerrilla war in southeast.
1987 - Turkey applies for full EEC membership.
1990 - Turkey allows US-led coalition against Iraq to launch air strikes from Turkish bases.
1992 - 20,000 Turkish troops enter Kurdish safe havens in Iraq in anti-PKK operation.
1993 - Tansu Ciller becomes Turkey's first woman prime minister, and Demirel elected president.
1995 - Major military offensive launched against the Kurds in northern Iraq, involving some 35,000 Turkish troops.
Pro-Islamist Welfare Party wins elections but lacks support to form government - two major centre-right parties form anti-Islamist coalition.
Turkey enters EU customs union.
Rise of political Islam
1996 - Centre-right coalition falls. Welfare Party leader Necmettin Erbakan heads first pro-Islamic government since 1922.
1997 - Coalition resigns after campaign led by the military, replaced by a new coalition led by the centre-right Motherland Party of Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz.
1998 January - Welfare Party - the largest in parliament - banned. Yilmaz resigns amid corruption allegations, replaced by Bulent Ecevit.
1999 February - PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan captured in Kenya.
2001 June - Constitutional Court bans opposition pro-Islamic Virtue Party, saying it had become focus of anti-secular activities.
2002 January - Turkish men are no longer regarded in law as head of the family. The move gives women full legal equality with men, 66 years after women's rights were put on the statute books.
2002 August - Parliament approves reforms aimed at securing EU membership. Death sentence to be abolished except in times of war and bans on Kurdish education, broadcasting to be lifted.
Islamist party victorious
2002 November - Islamist-based Justice and Development Party (AK) wins landslide election victory. Party promises to stick to secular principles of constitution. Deputy leader Abdullah Gul appointed premier.
2002 December - Constitutional changes allow head of ruling AK Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to run for parliament, and so to become prime minister. He had been barred from public office because of previous criminal conviction.
2003 March - AK Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan wins seat in parliament. Within days Abdullah Gul resigns as prime minister and Erdogan takes over.
Parliament decides not to allow deployment of US forces ahead of war in Iraq but allows US use of Turkish air space. It authorises dispatch of Turkish forces into Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.
2003 June-July - Eyeing future EU membership, parliament passes laws easing restrictions on freedom of speech, Kurdish language rights, and on reducing political role of military.
EU talks
2004 December - EU leaders agree to open talks in 2005 on Turkey's EU accession. The decision, made at a summit in Brussels, follows a deal over an EU demand that Turkey recognise Cyprus as an EU member.
2005 January - New lira currency introduced as six zeroes are stripped from old lira, ending an era in which banknotes were denominated in millions.
2005 May - Parliament approves amendments to new penal code after complaints that the previous version restricted media freedom. The EU welcomes the move but says the code still fails to meet all its concerns on human rights.
2005 June - Parliament overturns veto by secularist President Sezer on government-backed amendment easing restrictions on teaching of Koran.
2005 October - EU membership negotiations officially launched after intense bargaining.
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2006 December - EU partially freezes Turkey's membership talks because of Ankara's failure to open its ports and airports to Cypriot traffic.
Headscarf dispute
2008 February - Thousands protest at plans to allow women to wear the Islamic headscarf to university.
2008 July - Petition to the constitutional court to have the governing AK Party banned for allegedly undermining the secular constitution fails by a narrow margin.
2008 October - Trial starts of 86 suspected members of shadowy ultra-nationalist Ergenekon group, which is accused of plotting a series of attacks and provoking a military coup against the government.
2009 July - President Abdullah Gul approves legislation proposed by the ruling AK Party giving civilian courts the power to try military personnel for threatening national security or involvement in organised crime.
2009 October - The governments of Turkey and Armenia agree to normalise relations at a meeting in Switzerland. Both parliaments will need to ratify the accord. Turkey says opening the border will depend on progress on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
2009 December - The government introduces measures in parliament to increase Kurdish language rights and reduce the military presence in the mainly-Kurdish southeast as part of its "Kurdish initiative".
