1821    Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain.

1851    Honduras and El Salvador, during their invasion of Guatemala, are repelled at the Battle of La Arada.

1895    El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua form the Greater Republic of Central America.

1953    Ernesto "Che" Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.

1969    Football War: after Honduras loses a soccer match against El Salvador, riots break out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers.

1969    A cease fire is announced between Honduras and El Salvador, 6 days after the beginning of the "Football War"

1980    Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador gives his famous speech appealing to men of the El Salvadoran armed forces to stop killing the Salvadorans.

1980    El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice.

1980    Four U.S. nuns and churchwomen, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel, are murdered by a death squad in El Salvador.

1981    El Mozote massacre: Armed forces in El Salvador kill an estimated 900 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign during the Salvadoran Civil War.

1986    An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter Scale strikes San Salvador, El Salvador, killing an estimated 1,500 people.

1989    A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops kills six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.

1992    El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City ending the 12-year Salvadoran civil war that claimed at least 75,000.

2001    An earthquake hits El Salvador, killing more than 800.

2001    An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 400.