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500,000 BCE – 701 BCE

Prehistory & Bronze Age

Early humans left traces in the mountains and oases long before cities, and the Bactria-Margiana complex of about 2200-1700 BCE built fortified settlements in Surxondaryo. Irrigation farmers in Khwarazm and Sogdiana then prepared the oasis states that followed.

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c. 70,000 years ago (estimates 56,000–100,000) Obi-Rakhmat Grotto hominin remains Obi-Rakhmat is a shallow karst grotto at about 1,250 metres, where the Chatkal and Pskem rivers meet in the western Tien Shan, roughly 100 kilometres northeast of Tashkent.
from c. 9th millennium BCE (most carvings Bronze Age) Sarmishsay rock-art gallery Sarmishsay is a gorge in the Karatau mountains of Navoiy Region, in central Uzbekistan, where more than 10,000 petroglyphs cover rock faces in two main clusters.
c. 1900–1450 BCE Sapalli culture and Djarkutan In the Sherabad steppe of present-day Surxondaryo Region, the Sapalli culture, dated roughly from the twentieth to the fifteenth century BCE, formed the northern Bactrian variant of the Oxus Civilisation.
c. 1500–900 BCE Chust culture of the Ferghana Valley The Chust culture, dated to about 1500–900 BCE, spans the Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age in the Ferghana Valley of eastern Uzbekistan.
c. 900–400 BCE Younger Avesta composed in eastern Iran The Younger Avestan texts, among them the Vendidad, the Visperad and the Yashts, were composed orally between roughly 900 and 400 BCE. The older Gathas are dated about 1500–900 BCE, with 1000 BCE favoured by many scholars.

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700 BCE – 324 BCE

Achaemenids & Alexander

Cyrus and Darius I made Bactria, Sogdia and Chorasmia part of an empire of about 5.5 million square kilometres, and Alexander annexed Sogdiana in 328 BCE after fierce resistance. Maracanda, today's Samarkand, was already the main oasis city between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya.

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c. 700 BCE (8th–6th century BCE proposed) Foundation of Samarkand on the Afrasiab hill Samarkand's exact founding date is unknown, but researchers at the Samarkand institute of archaeology date it to about 700 BCE, and another proposal puts it between the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. Excavation of the Afrasiab hill, the old city on the northern edge of modern Samarkand, shows habitation beginning in the seventh or sixth century BCE and lasting until the Mongol invasion of 1220.
Spring 480 BCE Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians in the invasion of Greece In spring 480 BCE the Persian army crossed the Hellespont to invade Greece.
329 BCE Siege of Cyropolis In 329 BCE Alexander besieged Cyropolis, a walled city in Sogdiana, in the territory of present-day Tajikistan close to the Fergana Valley.
328 BCE King of Khwarazm offers friendship to Alexander In 328 BCE the king of Khwarazm, the Chorasmian kingdom on the lower Amu Darya, sent an embassy to Alexander offering friendship.
c. February 324 BCE Susa weddings and Spitamenes's daughter Apama In 324 BCE, at Susa, Alexander held a mass wedding in which about 80 of his officers married noble Persian and Median women, in a ceremony blending Greek and Persian customs.

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323 BCE – 250

Hellenistic & Kushan Era

Seleucids and Greco-Bactrians held Bactria and Sogdiana, then Yuezhi and Kushans ruled while Kangju and Dayuan dominated the north and Ferghana. Han sources counted 300,000 people in Dayuan and 600,000 in Kangju, and Silk Road trade began to link the oases.

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312 BCE Seleucid Rule Reaches Bactria and Sogdiana In 312 BCE Seleucus established himself in Babylon, the moment later used to begin the Seleucid era and the empire that bore his dynasty's name.
c. 160 BCE Saka Tribes Take Over the Ferghana Valley Around 160 BCE Saka tribes probably took control of the Ferghana Valley, the fertile basin shared today by Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
104–101 BCE War of the Heavenly Horses Between 104 and 101 BCE, with some sources giving 104 to 102 BCE, the Han general Li Guangli campaigned against Dayuan in the Ferghana Valley.
90 CE Ban Chao Defeats a Kushan Army In 90 CE the Kushans, whose heartland included Bactria and the Surkhan Darya valley, sent about 70,000 troops against the Han general Ban Chao in the Tarim Basin.
c. 225–240 CE Sasanians Take Bactria from the Kushans Around 230 CE the new Sasanian dynasty of Iran took Bactria, Sogdia and Gandhara from the western Kushans and established the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom.

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251 – 650

Sogdians, Hephthalites & Turks

Sasanians, Hephthalites and then the Western Turkic Khaganate controlled the oases while Sogdian merchants dominated Silk Road trade and founded colonies as far as China. Turks took Tashkent about 562-564, and the Anxi Protectorate of Tang China loosely overlay Sogdia by about 650.

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c. 260 CE Sasanian Capture of Samarkand Around 260 CE, the Sasanians conquered Samarkand, according to one modern account.
c. 313–314 CE Sogdian Ancient Letters Around 313 to 314 CE, at the end of the Western Jin dynasty, Sogdian traders in China wrote a group of letters in their own language.
484 CE Sasanian King Killed by the Hephthalites In 484 CE the Sasanian king Peroz I attacked the Hephthalites despite opposition from nobles and clergy.
588–589 CE First Perso-Turkic War In 588 the Western Turkic khagan Bagha, with Hephthalite subjects, invaded Sasanian territory south of the Oxus and took Balkh, Talaqan, Badghis and Herat.
648–651 CE Afrasiab Murals of Samarkand's Ambassadors Between 648 and 651 CE a hall on the Afrasiab mound in Samarkand was painted with murals showing neighbouring lands and their envoys.

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651 – 999

Arab Conquest & Samanids

Arab armies under Qutayba ibn Muslim conquered Khwarazm in 712 and the Sogdian cities in the early eighth century, and mass conversion followed from the 750s. The Samanids ruled from Samarkand and then Bukhara and reached an estimated 2,850,000 square kilometres in 928.

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673 CE Arab Army Invades Bukhara In 673 an Arab army under Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad crossed the Oxus (Amu Darya) and invaded the oasis of Bukhara, one of the richest cities of Sogdiana.
July 751 Battle of Talas In July 751 an Abbasid army under Ziyad ibn Salih fought a Tang army led by Gao Xianzhi on the Talas River, near modern Taraz.
c. 892–943 CE Samanid Mausoleum Built in Bukhara The Samanid Mausoleum stands in north-western Bukhara.
943 or 944 CE Narshakhi Presents the History of Bukhara In 943 or 944 Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Jafar Narshakhi of the Bukhara oasis presented his Arabic History of Bukhara (Tarikh-i Bukhara) to the reigning Samanid emir.
999 CE Karakhanids Take Bukhara and End Samanid Rule In 999 the Karakhanid khan Nasr ibn Ali took Bukhara, bringing the Samanid state to an end in Transoxiana.

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1000 – 1219

Karakhanids & Khwarazmshahs

The Karakhanids took Bukhara in 999 and ruled Transoxiana from Samarkand, later under Seljuk and Kara-Khitai suzerainty after Qatwan in 1141. Khwarazm swallowed the Western Karakhanids in 1212 and held an empire of up to 3.6 million square kilometres.

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3 July 1017 Mahmud of Ghazni Conquers Khwarazm On 3 July 1017 Mahmud of Ghazni defeated Khwarazmian rebels, captured Gurganj and executed the killers of the Ma'munid ruler.
18 March 1074 Al-Zamakhshari Born in Khwarazm Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari was born on 18 March 1074 in Zamakhshar, Khwarazm.
1130 CE Sultan Sanjar Captures Samarkand In 1130 the Seljuk sultan Ahmad Sanjar besieged and captured Samarkand after a western Karakhanid ruler invited him in.
c. 1197 CE Al-Marghinani, Author of the Hidaya, Dies Burhan al-Din Ali al-Marghinani, born in 1135 at Marghinan near Fergana in present-day Uzbekistan, died in 1197 (593 AH), though one report gives 596 AH. He was buried in Samarkand.
winter 1218–1219 Otrar Incident: Mongol Caravan Massacred In the winter of 1218–1219 a Mongol trading caravan of about 450 merchants arrived at Otrar on the Syr Darya.

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1220 – 1369

Mongol Conquest

Genghis Khan's armies destroyed Otrar, Bukhara, Samarkand and Gurganj in 1219-1221, and Transoxiana passed to the Chagatai Khanate. Mahmud Yalavach's family administered the oases, Bukhara rose in 1238 and was sacked again in 1272, and the khanate split in the 1340s.

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7 – c. 20 February 1220 Mongol siege and sack of Bukhara A Mongol army reached Bukhara on 7 February 1220 after crossing the Kyzylkum Desert, a route the Khwarazmian defenders had not expected.
1227 Chagatai inherits Central Asia: the Chagatai Khanate takes shape When Genghis Khan died in 1227, his second son Chagatai inherited a great ulus that stretched from the old Uighur lands near Almaliq to the Amu Darya in Transoxiana.
c. 1318 – c. 1326 Kebek restores the khanate and makes Qarshi a capital Kebek, who had reigned briefly in 1309–10, returned to power around 1318 and ruled until about 1325 or 1326.
1346–1358 Emir Qazaghan kills the khan and rules through puppets In 1346 the emir Qazaghan, leader of the Qara'unas tribe, killed Khan Qazan.
1365 Samarkand sarbadars resist the Moghul siege In 1365 Ilyas Khoja, khan of Moghulistan, invaded the western Chagatai khanate.

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1370 – 1506

Timurid Empire

Timur made Samarkand the capital of an empire of about 4.4 million square kilometres by 1405, and Shahrukh and Ulugh Beg turned Samarkand and Herat into centres of science and building. Samarkand held about 150,000 people around 1404, and Shaybani ended Timurid rule in 1501.

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1370 Timur takes power and makes Samarkand his capital In 1370, after the defeat and death of Amir Husayn, Timur was proclaimed sovereign of Transoxiana; he had taken Balkh in 1369.
1403–1404 Construction of the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum Construction of the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum in Samarkand began in 1403, after the death of Timur's grandson Muhammad Sultan, and completion is dated 1404.
1437 Ulugh Beg's Zij-i-Sultani star catalogue Ulugh Beg and his collaborators compiled the Zij-i-Sultani, an astronomical table and star catalogue published at the Samarkand observatory in 1438–1439.
1483–1485 Babur born at Andijan Zahir ud-Din Muhammad Babur was born on 14 February 1483 at Andijan in the Fergana Valley, in present-day Uzbekistan.
1505 Shaybanid Uzbeks take Khwarazm In 1505 Shaybanid Uzbeks took Khwarazm, the oasis around Urgench and Khiva, ending the rule of the Sufid family, which had governed it for Timur and his successors since the 1380s.

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1507 – 1867

Shaybanids & Khanates

Shaybanid Uzbeks founded the Khanate of Bukhara, Khiva followed in 1511, Kokand in 1709, and the Manghit emirate in 1785. Nader Shah's raid of 1740 and Russia's advance from 1865 ended the independent khanates; Kokand alone had over five million subjects in the 1830s by one estimate.

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1507 Shaybanid Conquest of Herat In 1507 the Uzbek leader Muhammad Shaybani captured Herat, the southern capital of the Timurid realm, and with it much of Khorasan.
c. 1570 Kukeldash Madrasa in Tashkent Around 1570 the Kukeldash Madrasa was built in Tashkent near the Chorsu bazaar, ordered by the Shaybanid ruler Dervish Sultan according to Wikipedia.
1747 Manghit Ataliqs Seize Power in Bukhara In 1747 the Manghit ataliq Muhammad Rahim Bi murdered Abulfayz Khan and his son, ending the Janid line in Bukhara.
1840–1842 Itchan Kala Palace and Madrasa Building in Khiva In 1840–1842 the Alla-Kulli-Khan caravan palace, madrasa and tim were built in Khiva's Itchan Kala, and the Toshhovli Palace was erected in the same period.
23 July 1867 Governorate-General of Turkestan Established On 23 July 1867 Russia established the Governorate-General of Turkestan as a separate unit of the empire, with Konstantin von Kaufman as the first governor-general and Tashkent as capital.

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1868 – 1916

Russian Turkestan

Russia took Tashkent in 1865, created the Turkestan Governorate-General in 1867, and made Bukhara and Khiva protectorates in 1868 and 1873. The 1897 census counted 5,280,983 people in Turkestan, Uzbeks 37.8 percent, while cotton and railways reshaped the economy.

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May–June 1868 Russian Capture and Siege of Samarkand In May 1868 a Russian column occupied Samarkand, the former capital of Timur, and left a small garrison in the citadel.
10 June 1873 Russo-Khivan Treaty and Abolition of Slavery The treaty signed on 24 August 1873 made Khiva a dependent of the Russian Empire.
1886 Turkestan Statute Reforms of 1886 Following the death of the first governor-general in 1882, a commission led by Fedor Giers toured Russian Turkestan and reported on its administration.
1905–1908 Jadid Schools and the Turkestan Press Between 1905 and 1908 Central Asian modernists known as Jadids published the region's first Muslim newspapers and expanded a network of new-method schools.
July 1916 Central Asian Revolt of 1916 On 25 June 1916 (Old Style) a decree called up Central Asian men aged 19 to 43 for labour battalions behind the front.

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1917 – 1945

Revolution & Early Soviet

Revolution brought the Kokand autonomy, the Turkestan ASSR in 1918, and the Bukharan and Khorezm republics before national delimitation created the Uzbek SSR on 27 October 1924. Tajikistan separated in 1929, Karakalpakstan joined in 1936, and the 1939 census counted 6,271,269 people.

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March 1917 (Old Style) Tashkent Soviet and the 1917 Revolution The Tashkent Soviet was founded on 2 March 1917 (probably Old Style) after news of the revolution in Petrograd.
2 February – 26 April 1920 Bukharan People's Soviet Republic Proclaimed The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic was proclaimed on 8 October 1920, with the Young Bukharan leader Fayzulla Khojaev heading its Council of People's Nazirs.
1929 Murder of Hamza Hakimzade Niyazi On 18 March 1929 the playwright, poet and composer Hamza Hakimzade Niyazi was stoned to death by villagers at Shohimardon (Shahimardan) while he was leading an effort to dismantle a shrine.
1939 Great Fergana Canal In 1939 the Great Fergana Canal, an irrigation channel 270 km long drawing water from the Syr Darya, was dug across the Fergana Valley in forty-five days.
18–20 May 1944 Deportation of Meskhetian Turks to Uzbekistan On 14 and 15 November 1944 the Soviet government forcibly deported the Meskhetian Turks from the Meskheti region of the Georgian SSR; sources differ on the start date, and the operation was complete by 26 November.

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1946 – 1990

Late Soviet Uzbekistan

The republic grew from 8,105,704 people in 1959 to 19.8 million in 1989 as the Uzbek share rose from 62.2 to 71.4 percent. The 1966 Tashkent earthquake, cotton monoculture and the Aral Sea's decline marked these decades, and sovereignty came on 20 June 1990.

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November 1947 Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre opens in Tashkent In November 1947 Tashkent opened the Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre, a monumental domed building seating about 1,400 spectators, with a main stage of roughly 540 square metres.
1966 Savitsky founds the Nukus museum In 1966 the painter, archaeologist and collector Igor Savitsky founded the museum in Nukus, capital of Karakalpakstan, and became its first curator.
11 August 1979 Pakhtakor football team killed in mid-air collision On 11 August 1979 two Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 jets collided in mid-air near Dniprodzerzhynsk, now Kamianske, in the Ukrainian SSR. All 178 people on both aircraft died, 94 on Flight 7628 and 84 on Flight 7880.
January 1989 Soviet census records 19.8 million people in Uzbekistan The last Soviet census, taken in January 1989, recorded about 19.8 million people in the Uzbek SSR. Wikipedia's demography article gives 19,810,077, while its article on the Uzbek SSR gives 19,905,158, so the exact total differs by source.
24 March 1990 Karakalpak ASSR declares sovereignty On 14 December 1990 the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, a unit of the Uzbek SSR, declared its sovereignty.

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1991 – 2016

Karimov Era

Independence was declared on 31 August 1991 and the constitution adopted on 8 December 1992, with Islam Karimov as president until his death in 2016. There was no census between 1989 and 2026, so the roughly 24.65 million of 2000 and 32.1 million of 2017 are estimates.

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31 August 1991 Declaration of Independence of Uzbekistan On 31 August 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR adopted a resolution declaring the Republic of Uzbekistan independent, together with a law on its state independence.
July 1996 Amir Timur Museum Opens in Tashkent The Amir Timur Museum opened in central Tashkent on 18 October 1996.
13 May 2005 Andijan Uprising and Massacre On the night of 12–13 May 2005 armed men stormed a prison in Andijan, freeing 23 local businessmen accused of extremism and hundreds of other inmates, then seized the regional administration building.
10–14 June 2010 Osh Violence and Refugees Cross into Uzbekistan Between 10 and 14 June 2010 violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks engulfed the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh and spread to Jalal-Abad.
2016 2016 Presidential Election Uzbekistan held a snap presidential election on 4 December 2016, three months after the first president's death.

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2017 – present

Mirziyoyev Era

Shavkat Mirziyoyev's presidency brought a border thaw, with Kyrgyzstan gaining 156 square kilometres in 2022 and the Barak enclave absorbed in 2024, and the July 2022 Karakalpakstan unrest. Wikipedia reports 39,047,321 people in a 2026 census, to be verified.

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5 September 2017 Currency Liberalisation A presidential decree of 2 September 2017, titled 'On priority measures of liberalizing foreign exchange policy', took effect on 5 September.
15 March 2020 COVID-19 Reaches Uzbekistan On 15 March 2020 Uzbekistan confirmed its first COVID-19 case, an Uzbek citizen returning from France, with Tashkent listed as the index case.
March 2022 Samarkand SCO Summit The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's heads-of-state summit was held in Samarkand on 15–16 September 2022.
30 April 2023 Zarafshan-Karakum Silk Road Corridor Inscribed In 2023, at the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO inscribed Silk Roads: the Zarafshan-Karakum Corridor, shared by Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
2026 Uzbekistan at the 2026 FIFA World Cup Uzbekistan made its World Cup debut in Group K of the 2026 tournament.

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Prehistory & Bronze Age

Achaemenids & Alexander

Hellenistic & Kushan Era

Sogdians, Hephthalites & Turks

Arab Conquest & Samanids

Karakhanids & Khwarazmshahs

Mongol Conquest

Timurid Empire

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