Key events in Egypt during the rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
October 1981: Mubarak succeeds the assassinated leader Anwar Sadat, who had made him his vice president.
November 1981: He is approved as President in a referendum; the regime subsequently holds regular elections, but not until 2005 are rival candidates allowed to challenge him.
May 1989: Egypt is readmitted to the Arab League, from which it had been suspended over the 1979 peace treaty that Mr Sadat had signed with Israel.
June 1995: Mr Mubarak escapes an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, claimed by Egypt’s main armed fundamentalist group, Jamaa Islamiya. It is the first of at least six attempts on his life.
November 1997: Jamaa Islamiya kills 68, including 58 foreign tourists, at a popular site in Luxor.
September 1999: President Mubarak is lightly wounded in an assassination attempt in the town of Port Said.
December 1999: Egypt agrees to sell its natural gas to Israel, and also to the Palestinians.
September 2003: Mubarak calls for greater democracy and freedom of political assembly, but his son Gamal appears to be being groomed to succeed him.
October 2004: Attacks in the Sinai resort of Taba and nearby kill 34 people, mostly Israelis. The strike is claimed by an Al-Qaeda linked group. The authorities allow the creation of a new political party, Al-Ghad (Tomorrow).
February 2005: Egypt decides to send an ambassador to Israel, a post that has remained vacant since the beginning of a Palestinian uprising in 2000. Under US pressure, Mr Mubarak orders Parliament to amend Egypt’s Constitution to allow multi-candidate presidential elections.
July 2005: Triple bomb attacks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh kill at least 68, including foreigners.
September 2005: Mr Mubarak is sworn in for a fifth term after being re-elected in the first multi-candidate poll. Under an agreement with Israel, Egypt says it will deploy its soldiers along the southern border of the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
June 2009: US President Barack Obama visits Cairo and makes a speech calling for a “new beginning” in relations between the United States and the Muslim world.
February 2010: Mohamed ElBaradei, a former top UN diplomat, returns to Egypt and announces he may contest the Egyptian presidency.
November 2010: Mr Mubarak’s party wins 420 of 508 seats in parliamentary polls, as the opposition cries foul and monitors say the vote was marred by fraud.
January 25, 2010: Major nationwide protests begin calling for the ouster of Mr Mubarak. An estimated 300 people are killed and around 3,000 injured in clashes with police over the next few days.
February 1: Mubarak announces that he will not stand for re-election in September and will work to prepare for an orderly transition, eliciting jeers from protesters in the street who continue to demand that he leave immediately.