Colombo Timeline of Events

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Colombo

Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...

Timeline of Events

1942

4.5.1942

World War II: The Japanese Navy attacks Colombo in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island.

1983

7.25.1983

Black July: 37 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.

7.27.1983

Black July: 18 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by Sinhalese prisoners, the second such massacre in two days.

1986

5.3.1986

Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes in an airliner (Flight UL512) at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.

1987

4.21.1987

The Tamil Tigers are blamed for a car bomb that explodes in the Sri Lankan city of Colombo, killing 106 people.

1996

1.31.1996

An explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo, Sri Lanka killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400.

2006

11.10.2006

Sri Lankan Tamil Parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj is assassinated in Colombo.