Timeline: Bahamas

A chronology of key events:

1492 - Christopher Columbus makes his first landing in the New World in the Bahamas.

Few of the hundreds of islands and cays are inhabited BBC Science & Nature: Bahamas

1647 - English and Bermudan religious refugees, the Eleutheran Adventurers, establish the first European settlement on the Bahamas.

1666 - Colonisation of New Providence Island begins.

1717 - Bahamas become a British crown colony.

1783 - Spain cedes the Bahamas to Britain in accordance with the Treaty of Paris after briefly occupying the islands the previous year.

1834 - Emancipation of slaves.

1940-45 - The Duke of Windsor - formerly King Edward VIII - serves as governor of the Bahamas.

1950 - Britain grants the US a military test range and tracking station for guided missiles in the Bahamas.

1955 - Free trade area established in the town of Freeport, stimulating tourism and attracting offshore banking.

Bahamas founding father, Sir Lynden Pindling Born in 1930 1967: Becomes prime minister 1983: Knighted Died in 2000

1964 - Bahamas granted internal autonomy.

1967 - Lynden Pindling becomes prime minister after his centrist Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) wins the islands' first legislative elections.

1972 - Negotiations with Britain over independence begin in the wake of an overwhelming victory in the elections by the PLP, which campaigns on a platform of independence.

Independence

1973 - The Bahamas become independent.

1983 - Government ministers face allegations of drug trafficking.

1984 - Pindling is endorsed as PLP leader after denying charges of corruption and ties to drug traffickers.

1992 - Hubert Ingraham becomes prime minister after his centre-left Free National Movement (FNM) wins an absolute majority in the general elections, ending 25 years of rule by Pindling.

1996 - Ingraham reinstates the death penalty for murder.

1997 - Ingraham returns as prime minister after his party is re-elected.

Hurricane Floyd battered the islands in 1999 2004: Hurricane Jeanne batters Bahamas 1999: Picking up after Floyd

1998 - Two convicted murderers are hanged despite international opposition and concern over the use of the death penalty in the Caribbean.

2000 August - "Father of independence" Sir Lynden Pindling dies. He was head of government from 1967-92.

2001 November - Dame Ivy Dumont becomes the Bahama's first woman governor-general.

2002 May - Veteran politician Perry Christie leads his Progressive Liberal Party to a landslide victory, unseating the Free National Movement, which has been in power for 10 years.

2004 September - Hurricane Frances sweeps through, causing widespread damage. Weeks later Hurricane Jeanne batters the Bahamas.

2006 March - UK-based final appeals court rules that the mandatory death sentence for murder breaches the Bahamian constitution. It was last used in 2000.

2007 May - Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham's Free National Movement wins parliamentary elections.