President Salvador Allende appoints Augusto Pinochet commander-in-chief of the Chilean army and brings him into the cabinet

Chilean president Salvador Allende dies in the Chilean capital, Santiago, in a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet

More than 7000 life-size terracotta solders are unearthed at Xi'an, placed to guard the tomb of the third century BC Chinese emperor Shi Huangdi

Augusto Pinochet takes sole power in Chile, at the head of a junta which governs with extreme brutality

Chiang Kai-shek dies and is succeeded by his son, Chiang Ching-Kuo, as leader of the republic of China in Taiwan

Mao Zedong dies in Beijing, at the age of 82, and lies in state in the Great Hall of the People

The much-hated Gang of Four are arrested in China within weeks of Mao Zedong's death

Veteran Communist leader Deng Xiaoping secures his position as the real power in China's government

Chilean author Isabel Allende publishes her first novel, The House of the Spirits

John Adams' opera Nixon in China is performed in Houston

Bernardo Bertolucci directs The Last Emperor, a film based on the life of Puyi, the last in China's imperial line

Augusto Pinochet, the only candidate in Chile's presidential election, resigns when he wins less than half the votes cast

Students, teachers and workers gather in large numbers in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to demand democratic reform

The crowd demonstrating on Beijing's Tiananmen Square swells to more than a million

Confronted with mass popular protest, Deng Xiaoping imposes martial law in China

More than 2000 peaceful demonstrators die after troops open fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square

With the fall of Pinochet, Chile returns eagerly to democracy - electing a Christian Democrat, Patricio Aylwin, as president

Gong Li plays a concubine of a Chinese warlord in Raise the Red Lantern, directed by Zhang Yimou

Work begins on China's ambitiious and controversial Three Gorges Dam project

Chen Kaige directs Farewell My Concubine, depicting the devastating effect of the Cultural Revolution on some performers of Peking opera

Deng Xiaoping dies and is succeeded by Jiang Zemin as China's leader

Hong Kong reverts to China with the end of Britain's 99-year lease of the New Territories

The British architectural firm of Foster & Partners completes the Hong Kong International Airport

Augusto Pinochet, visiting Britain from Chile for medical treatment, is arrested on an extradition request from a Spanish judge

The island of Macau reverts from Portuguese ownership to the People's Republic of China