History of Peru: a timeline

16 moments in the history of Peru, in order, each with what happened and why it matters.

Eras

  1. Before 1492 (15000 BC–1492)
  2. Empire and the colonial Americas (1492–1808)
  3. Revolutions and new nations (1808–1898)
  4. Democracy and today (1975–)

Before 1492 (15000 BC–1492)

  1. between 200 BC and 600: The Nazca draw on the desert — On the dry southern coast of Peru the Nazca people, who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 600 in valleys around their ceremonial centre of Cahuachi, scraped…
  2. c. 1438–1471: Pachacuti and the rise of the Inca — Inca tradition says that around 1438 the Chanca attacked Cusco, the ruler fled, and a young prince stayed to defend the city, winning with the help of stones…

Empire and the colonial Americas (1492–1808)

  1. 16 November 1532: Cajamarca: Pizarro captures Atahualpa — Francisco Pizarro reached the Andean town of Cajamarca on 15 November 1532 with 168 men.
  2. 18 January 1535: Lima, the City of the Kings, is founded — On 18 January 1535 Francisco Pizarro founded the Ciudad de los Reyes, the City of the Kings, on the Rímac river near the Pacific coast, naming it for the Magi…
  3. 20 November 1542: The New Laws of the Indies — On 20 November 1542 Charles V signed the Leyes Nuevas, the New Laws 'for the good treatment and preservation of the Indians'.
  4. 1555–1571: Friars write the first grammars of American languages — To preach in the languages of the Americas, missionaries had to study them, and in doing so they wrote the first grammars and dictionaries of Nahuatl, Quechua…
  5. c. 1765–1788: The Bourbon reforms — Under Charles III (1759–88) the Crown set out to govern the Americas more tightly and profitably.
  6. 1767: Charles III expels the Jesuits — In 1767 Charles III ordered the Society of Jesus out of Spain and all its American and Asian dominions, as Portugal and France had already done.
  7. 4 November 1780–18 May 1781: The rebellion of Túpac Amaru II — José Gabriel Condorcanqui, born in 1738 in Surimana near Cusco, was the kuraka (hereditary chief) of three villages, a mule-train owner educated by the…

Revolutions and new nations (1808–1898)

  1. 28 July 1821: San Martín proclaims Peru's independence — Peru, the heart of Spanish power in South America, was the last great viceroyalty to fall.
  2. 9 December 1824: Ayacucho: the end of Spanish rule in South America — On 9 December 1824, on the high plain of Quinua near Ayacucho, the United Liberating Army of Peru under Antonio José de Sucre, Bolívar's most trusted general,…
  3. February 1879–April 1884: The War of the Pacific — The Atacama desert held the world's richest nitrate, used for fertiliser and explosives, mostly worked by Chilean companies on Bolivian and Peruvian soil.

Democracy and today (1975–)

  1. October 1982: García Márquez wins the Nobel: the Boom — In the 1960s a handful of Latin American novelists became world famous almost at once: the Argentine Julio Cortázar with Rayuela (1963), the Peruvian Mario…
  2. c. 2015: The Venezuelan exodus — Venezuela, once the richest country in South America and a magnet for immigrants from Spain, Italy, Portugal and Colombia, has in a decade become the source of…
  3. 2017: Quechua today: the language of the Incas in the 2017 census — Quechua, the language family the Incas spread along the Andes, is still the most spoken indigenous language of the Americas.
  4. 28 July 2021–9 December 2024: Peru's bicentennial — Two hundred years after San Martín's proclamation in Lima, Peru named 2021 the 'Year of the Bicentennial of Peru: 200 years of Independence', with 28 July as…

Changes over time