1922: Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union.

1932-1933: Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin engineered the Ukrainian famine, known as the Holodomor, which resulted in an estimated 3.9 million Ukrainian deaths.

1936-1938: Stalin initiated a large-scale purge of perceived enemies from throughout the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, either executing them outright or shipping them off to Gulag labor camps. 

1941: Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and seized almost all of Ukraine. 

1944: Stalin deported the entire population of Crimean Tatars, and Soviet troops recaptured Ukraine and forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of ethnic Poles as they marched west towards Germany. During World War II, Ukraine suffered an estimated 5 million to 7 million deaths, including around 1 million Ukrainian Jews. 

1954: The Soviet government under Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine.

1986: the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine experienced a deadly reactor meltdown in a safety test, which is often blamed for hastening the Soviet Union's demise.

1991: Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union.

1994: Ukraine gave up its inherited nuclear weapons in exchange for a Russian promise to respect existing borders, and became a major recipient of US foreign aid. 

2004: The Orange Revolution saw pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko win a re-run vote after allegations of fraud in the original election. 

2014: Protestors forced out the Russia-backed President, Viktor Yanukovych, and Russia responded by annexing Crimea and supporting a separatist revolt in the Donbas region. 

2019: Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian, was elected President of Ukraine.

2022: Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the country.