1849 Annexation of Punjab by the British colonial government.

1871 The Punjab Land Revenue Act is passed which incorporates customary law of the Punjab tribes as part of the formal legal system.

1900 The Land Alienation Act of 1900 is passed that divides rural Punjab into agricultural and non-agricultural tribes, and limits landownership to agricultural tribes only.

1906 Muslim League formed as a political party to represent the Muslims of India.

1920 Jinnah quits the Congress Party and joins the Muslim League.

1937 First elections to Provincial Legislative Assemblies are held. The Muslim League suffers defeat in all provinces.

1946 Second elections to Provincial Legislative Assemblies are held. The Muslim League realigns itself with various regional groups, including the Unionist Party in Punjab, and wins the election in NWFP, Punjab, Sindh and East Bengal. The party's main demand is a separate country for India's Muslims, called Pakistan.

1947 Independence from colonial rule, and the partition of India and the newly created Pakistan. Pakistan is divided into West and East Pakistan, between which lies 1,609 kilometres of Indian territory.

1947–58 Quick succession of various heads of a Constituent Assembly, while a Constitution is written.

1948 Jinnah, Pakistan's founder and first Governor General, dies after a protracted illness.

1948 Pakistan's first war with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

1951–54 Elections to the Provincial Legislative Assemblies are held in Punjab (1951), NWFP (1951), Sindh (1953) and East Pakistan (1954). All of these are later described as ‘a farce, a mockery and fraud upon the electorate’ by an Electoral Reform Commission (Kamran 2009, 82).

1956 The first Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is promulgated, calling for the country's first election.

1958 Pakistan's first military coup, led by General Ayub Khan.

1958–69 Pakistan's first Martial Law regime under General Ayub Khan.

1959 Pakistan's first set of land reforms.

1959–60 Pakistan's first local government elections are conducted under the ‘Basic Democracies system’ to create an electoral college to endorse Ayub Khan as Pakistan's first President.

1962 A second Constitution of the Republic of Pakistan is promulgated.

1964 (September–October) Local government elections are held again under the Basic Democracies system.