28
March
  Advertisement
Home  /  Timelines  /  Prime minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime minister is the presiding member and chairman of the cabinet...
Timeline of Events
1739
10.23.1739
War of Jenkins' Ear starts: British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declares war on Spain.
1812
5.11.1812
Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London.
1852
11.4.1852
Count Camillo Benso di Cavour becomes the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expands to become Italy.
1867
7.1.1867
The British North America Act of 1867 takes effect as the Constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation and the federal dominion of Canada; Sir John A. Macdonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada.
1939
6.24.1939
Siam is renamed to Thailand by Plaek Pibulsonggram, the country's third prime minister.
9.21.1939
Romanian Prime Minister Armand Calinescu is assassinated by ultranationalist members of the Iron Guard.
1940
5.10.1940
World War II: Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1942
4.18.1942
Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France.
1944
7.18.1944
World War II: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
1945
8.16.1945
An assassination attempt is made on Japan's prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki.
1946
1.22.1946
Iran: Qazi Muhammad declares the independent people's Republic of Mahabad at Chuwarchira Square in the Kurdish city of Mahabad. He is the new president; Hadschi Baba Scheich is the prime minister.
1952
2.26.1952
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that his nation has an atomic bomb.
1956
4.5.1956
In Sri Lanka, the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna win the general elections in a landslide and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike is sworn in as the Prime Minister.
1964
7.19.1964
Vietnam War: at a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
1965
8.19.1965
Japanese prime minister Eisaku Sato becomes the first post-World War II sitting prime minister to visit Okinawa.
1966
9.6.1966
In Cape Town, South Africa, the architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, is stabbed to death during a parliamentary meeting.
1970
10.16.1970
In response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada invokes the War Measures Act.
1972
12.2.1972
Gough Whitlam becomes the first Labor Prime Minister of Australia for 23 years.
1973
12.20.1973
The Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid.
1974
4.18.1974
The Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto inaugurates Lahore Dry port.
1977
7.5.1977
Military coup in Pakistan: Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, is overthrown.
1980
3.4.1980
Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.
1986
10.29.1986
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the last stretch of the M25 motorway.
1989
6.16.1989
Imre Nagy, the former Hungarian Prime Minister, is reburied in Budapest.
8.19.1989
Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski nominates Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be the first non-communist Prime Minister in 42 years.
8.25.1989
Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist Prime Minister in Central and Eastern Europe.
1990
7.27.1990
The Jamaat al Muslimeen attempt a ''coup d'état'' in Trinidad and Tobago, occupying the Trinidad and the studios of Trinidad and Tobago Television, holding Prime Minister A. N. R. Robinson and most of his Cabinet as well as the staff at the television station hostage for 6 days.
1991
5.21.1991
Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by a female suicide bomber near Madras.
1994
5.4.1994
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord regarding Palestinian autonomy granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
1995
11.5.1995
André Dallaire attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of Canada. He is thwarted when the Prime Minister's wife locks the door.
2003
3.12.2003
Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade.
2006
1.4.2006
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel suffers a second, apparently more serious stroke. His authority is transferred to acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
2007
12.27.2007
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident.