Timeline of South American history

This is a timeline of Amazon history, which dates back at least 11,000 years ago, when humans left indications of their presence in Caverna da Pedra Pintada.

Here is a brief timeline of historical events in the valley.

Before current era

 * 9250–8550 BCE: Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at become the oldest known paintings in South America.
 * 10,000–7000 BCE: "Horny Little Man," a depicting a stick figure with an oversized phallus, is carved in, a cave in central-eastern  and is the oldest reliably dated  in the Americas.
 * 9000 BCE: Dates of an adult man and child dying in in central . These human remains were excavated by  of the . They were accompanied by necklaces of human teeth and.
 * 5630 BCE: Ceramics left at, Brazil are the earliest known

Current era

 * 1000: Island of flourishes as an Amazonian ceramic center
 * 1494: Europeans create the divides Spanish and  claims to new territories. South America falls almost entirely to Spain. The line runs N-S some 100 km E of, Brazil.
 * 1498: enters the  estuary in present-day
 * 1500: sails into the Amazon estuary.
 * 1500: Portuguese navigator, en route to the Orient, discovers Brazil, landing in.
 * 1541–1542 – First descent of the Amazon by (1501–1550) from, Ecuador, via the  to the Atlantic Ocean. He fights Indian women he calls "Amazons." The name sticks to the river. Expedition chronicled by friar.
 * 1560–1561 – Second descent of the Amazon, this time by the conquistador.
 * 1570–1600 – missions are widely established in the Amazon. Indians relocated and "protected."
 * 1595 – Sir leads expedition to colonize the Orinoco River for the English. In 1616, he settles for.
 * 1616 – Founding of, Brazil, to mark Portuguese presence. The French, English, and even Irish try to colonize the region.
 * 1637–1639 – leads the first European expedition up the Amazon from  to, arriving unexpected.
 * 1726 –, ascending the , discovers the to the Orinoco.
 * 1736 – sends first rubber sample to Europe from his Amazon expedition.
 * 1750 – fixes boundaries between the Spanish and Portuguese empires in South America. Portuguese possession of areas west of the Tordesillas line is recognized, based on occupation.
 * 1759 – Jesuits are expelled from Brazil by the . Indians left without protection.
 * 1799 – explores the Orinoco and proves the link via the  to the . Humboldt refused permission to enter Brazil.
 * 1808–1825 – Spanish rule in South America ends with revolutions led by of Venezuela,  of Argentina, and  of Chile. In 1808 the Portuguese royal family arrives in Brazil escaping the Napoleon's invasion of Portugal.
 * 1818–1820 – and  on expedition in the Amazon.
 * 1822 – Brazil proclaims its independence under Dom.
 * 1823 – invents waterproof rubber cape. (Amazon Indians, users of rubber waterproof bags for centuries, get no credit.)
 * 1826–1828 – on expedition from  to Belém, arriving with sanity impaired.
 * 1826–1828 – revolt in Belém and, with 40,000 fatalities.
 * 1826-1833 - conducts a scientific tour of South America, including the Amazon valley.
 * 1827-1832 - conducts a scientific exploration through Chile, Peru, and the upper Amazon.
 * 1834-1835 - British naval officers William Smyth and Frederick Lowe travel from Lima, Peru across the Andes and down the entire length of the Amazon, seeking a navigable route for trade from the west coast of South America to the east. They publish their account in 1836.
 * 1839 – invents vulcanization of rubber which becomes an important component of the.
 * 1839–1842 – Brothers and  on expedition in northern Brazil.
 * 1842 – on the.
 * 1842-1845 -- Tardy de Montravel conducts a mapping expedition of the northern coast of Brazil and 1000 km up the lower Amazon.
 * 1846 – on the  and s.
 * 1846 -, an American businessman and amateur entomologist, voyages up the Amazon and publishes his account in 1847, which was read by and inspired Bates and Wallace to go to Brazil the following year.
 * 1848–1859 – and  in the Amazon. (Wallace leaves in 1852.)
 * 1849–1864 –, of cinchona fame, in the Amazon. He gets the tree seeds in 1860.
 * 1850 – is new capital of  province.
 * 1850–1915 – sucks tens of thousands of immigrants into the Amazon, mostly from the drought-stricken northeast of Brazil. Read the book White Gold to get the story from the rubber-tapper's point of view. Another good volume is Jungle by Ferreira de Castro.
 * 1851–1852 – Lieutenant and Lieutenant  (U.S. Navy) on the Amazon to Belém.
 * 1858 – gains rights to navigation on the Amazon River.
 * 1860s - William Chandless conducts expeditions on the Southern tributaries of the Amazon for the Royal Geographical Society.
 * 1861-1863 -- João Martins da Silva Coutinho travels through the rubber harvesting areas of the Amazon valley and later accompanies.
 * 1865–1866 – Biologist and geologist  on expedition in the Amazon.
 * 1866 – Founding of the of Natural History in Belém by  and others. Agassiz had given stimulus to this when he was in the Amazon.
 * 1867 – Amazon River opened to international shipping.
 * 1867 – Confederate expatriates settle in, after U.S. Civil War.
 * 1867 - surveys the possibility of routing a railroad along the Madeira River to link Peru to Amazon commerce.
 * 1867 - American travels from Quito Ecuador to the Amazon via the Napo River and later writes an account of his trip.
 * 1870-1871 - Morgan Expedition led by and assisted by student  conducts a geological and zoological survey of the northern Amazon valley.
 * 1873 - returns to Brazil and travels along the Amazon east from Belem to Lima, Peru.
 * 1874-1878 -- collected specimens based in Santarem, and later joins Charles F. Hartt to make surveys for the Brazilian Geological Survey.
 * 1875-1876 -- American teenager makes the first of his six trips to the Amazon valley to collect butterflies, beetles, and orchids for American collectors. His later trips were detailed in a series of columns for the "New York World".
 * 1876 – takes some 70,000 rubber tree seeds to  in England.
 * 1879 - returns to Brazil to write a series of popular travel narratives for "Scribners Magazine", later expanded into a book.
 * 1888 – invents the rubber tube tire.
 * 1895 – International arbitration forces to cede large area still disputed with.
 * 1895–1899 – and  explore Amazon waterways of.
 * 1897 – Manaus' Teatro Amazonas (opera house) opens. Rubber booming.
 * 1899–1903 – Acre proclaims itself independent of . In 1901, Bolivia cedes rights to Acre to New York rubber syndicate. In 1903, Acre becomes Brazilian by the, in which Bolivia is promised a railroad link to the Madeira River at Porto Velho.

20th century

 * 1907: is built by Americans under . Colonel Church's attempts in 1870–1881 are best called disasters made heroic by tragedy.
 * 1908–1911:, then the richest person in the world, invests in Amazon rubber plantations on the.
 * 1908–1911: Arana's rubber company on the is denounced for atrocities against Indians. English parliamentary inquiry in 1910. (Arana dies in 1952 in Lima after serving as Peruvian senator.) (Read the book The River that God Forgot.)
 * 1912: Rubber from Malaysia exceeds that coming out of the Amazon.
 * 1913: Former US president and Brazilian Field Marshal  on Amazon expedition down the River of Doubt (now the ) (Roosevelt, 1919).
 * 1914: bursts with the emergence of cheaper sources of rubber.
 * 1922: Salomón-Lozano Treaty awards Leticia to, as an outlet to the Amazon River. In 1933, Peru seizes Leticia but backs down under international pressure, and in 1935 Leticia is reoccupied by Colombia.
 * 1925: Colonel vanishes near the headwaters of the Xingu River. His eyeglasses are later found among the  of the Xingu River valley.
 * 1942: Brazil enters World War II. Demand is high for Amazon rubber. Brazil launches the ill-fated "" program.
 * 1947: Cerro Bolívar, iron ore deposit south of, Venezuela, is found and estimated at half a billion tons of high-grade ore. Puerto Ordaz is selected in 1953 as site for steel mill and huge hydroelectric plant.
 * 1960:, as new capital of Brazil, is founded.
 * 1962: opens as first major all-year Amazon highway, linking Amazon River port city of Belém with the rest of Brazil.
 * 1964: Military coup in Brazil puts democracy on hold for a generation. Economic miracle declared.
 * 1967: Iron ore deposit at is discovered in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. High quality ore (66% iron) is estimated at 18 billion tons.
 * 1967–1983: American businessman invests heavily in Jari wood pulp and lumber plantation. His losses would amount to over 500 million dollars.
 * 1970: project begins. Total costs would top one billion dollars. To this day (2008), the highway is impassable between Itaituba and Humaitá, and it ends short of the Peruvian border.
 * 1972: Trans-Amazon highway opens from, Maranhão to the Tapajós River.
 * 1974: Manaus-Porto Velho highway opens.
 * 1980: Gold deposit at is discovered. By 1986, an estimated 42 tons of gold are extracted from giant pit mine. Amazon gold rush is in full swing. In 1987 striking gold miners would be machine-gunned when they seize the railroad bridge at.
 * 1982: Kayaker Caril Ridley, sponsored by the Cousteau Foundation, Cousteau Amazon Expedition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevado_Mismi.
 * 1984: floods the lower Tocantins River valley.
 * 1988: New Brazilian federal constitution goes into effect, with many social and environmental guarantees.
 * 1988: Rubber-tapper is murdered on December 22, in, Acre. Two years later (December 1990), his accused killers, Darly Alves da Silva and his son Darci, are brought to trial and sentenced. (They escaped in 1993 and were later recaptured.)
 * 1989: The is held at  by the  to protest the proposed construction of hydroelectric dams on the Xingu River.
 * 1992: Brazil hosts UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The US, under President Bush, is made to appear the enemy because of refusal to sign the . (The US would belatedly sign the same, weak treaty under President Clinton.)
 * 1996: Renewed military presence seen in the Amazon region of Brazil, as a result of radar project and militarization of the borders against drug traffic (at US behest?). Secret project SIVAM is revealed.
 * 1996: On April 17, 1996, 19 landless farmers of the MST movement ("Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra") are shot by police at the "S" curve of highway PA-150 at, in state. These people were part of a demonstration calling for the federal disappropriation of an unproductive ranch where the MST had mounted a camp called "Macaxeira" with almost 3000 families.

21st century

 * 2005: On February 12, 2005, American missionary (73 years of age) is gunned down in Anapu, Pará.
 * 2005: Worst drought in 50 years hits the western Amazon Basin. Lakes and streams dry and massive fish mortality takes place. Turtle beaches are sacked by hungry residents.
 * 2007: The Brazilian government announces the to construct dams on the, , and  rivers, to go ahead with the polemical highway , and to expand petroleum and natural gas extraction in the  basin.
 * 2008: Second Amazon Indian congress is held at, to again protest the newly proposed Belo Monte dams on the Xingú River.
 * 2008: Former Minister of the Environment leaves her ministerial post and returns to the Senate, citing struggles with vested interests as an obstacle to conservation policy in Amazônia.
 * 2009: The takes place in, Brazil, drawing attention to the ecological crises facing the Amazon.
 * 2010: Drought hits.
 * 2013: Using data accumulated over 10 years, researchers estimate there are 390 billion trees in the Amazon rainforest, divided into 16,000 different species.