250 B.C. Parisii tribe lives on the Ile de la Cité and trades along the Seine.

52 B.C. Julius Caesar conquers the city during the Gallic Wars, renaming it Lutétia.

A.D.250 St-Denis beheaded in Montmartre.

486 Clovis, king of the Franks chooses Paris as his capital.

987 Hugh Capet becomes first king of the Capetian dynasty.

1253 Robert de Sorbon establishes the Sorbonne, a theology college.

1360s Charles V moves into the Louvre, making it a royal palace.

1546 First stones of present-day Louvre laid under François I.

1559 Construction begins on Catherine de Médici's Palais des Tuileries; building facades in Paris move from half-timbered to more durable chiseled stonework.

1572 The Wars of Religion reach their climax with the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants.

1599 Henri IV endorses the Edict of Nantes, establishing religious toleration.

1615 Construction begins on the Palais du Luxembourg for Henri IV's widow, Marie de Médici.

1624 The Palais Royal is built in honor of Cardinal Richelieu.

1683 Louis XIV, the "Sun King," moves his court to the newly built Versailles.

1789 The French Revolution begins.

1793 Louis XVI and his Austrian-born queen, Marie Antoinette, are publicly guillotined.

1804 Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor of France and embellishes Paris further with neoclassical splendor.

1814 Aided by a coalition of France's enemies, especially England, the Bourbon monarchy under Louis XVIII is temporarily restored.

1848 A violent working-class revolution deposes Louis-Philippe, who's replaced by autocratic Napoleon III.

1853 Napoleon III asks Baron Haussmann to modernize Paris.

1860s The Impressionist style of painting emerges.

1870 The Franco-Prussian War ends in the defeat of France.

1871 Insurrectionary government known as The Paris Commune takes over Paris from March to May.

1878-1937 Several international expositions add monuments to the Paris skyline, including the Tour Eiffel.

1914-18 World War I rips Europe apart.

1940 German troops invade Paris; the French government, under Marshal Pétain, evacuates to Vichy, while the French Resistance under Gen. Charles de Gaulle maintains symbolic headquarters in London.

1944 U.S. troops liberate Paris; Charles de Gaulle returns in triumph.

1954-62 War begins in Algeria and is eventually lost; refugees flood into Paris, and the nation becomes divided over its North African policies.

1958 France's Fourth Republic collapses; General de Gaulle is called out of retirement to head the Fifth Republic.

1968 Paris's students start rioting in the Latin Quarter.

1981 François Mitterrand is elected France's first Socialist president since the 1940s, he's reelected in 1988.

1989 Paris celebrates the bicentennial of the French Revolution.

1992 Euro Disney opens on the outskirts of Paris.

1994 Mitterrand and Queen Elizabeth II ride under the English Channel in the new Channel Tunnel.

1995 Jacques Chirac is elected president and Mitterrand dies the following year. Paris is crippled by a general strike and terrorists bomb the subway.

1999 On Christmas Day a violent storm assaults Paris and the Ile de France, damaging buildings and toppling thousands of trees.

2002 France replaces its national currency, the franc, and switches to the euro, the new European currency.

2003 Attacks on French Jews mark the rise of anti-Semitism, the worst since World War II.

2005 Riots break out in the suburbs and spread across France.

2006 Massive demonstrations against a new labor law are held in Paris and other cities. Jacques Chirac revokes the law.

2007 Pro-American Nicolas Sarkozy becomes president of France, sparking riots.

2008 France bans smoking in public places.

2010 Economic woes and a battered euro plague France.

2012 French presidential election.

Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.