1772-1918
Poland partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria.

1776-1781
Polish engineer Tadeusz Kosciuszko plays pivotal role in the Continental Army’s victory in the American Revolution.

1794
Kosciuszko leads a failed revolt against Poland’s Russian occupiers.

1918
Poland regains its independence following the collapse of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires after World War I.

1919
Merian Cooper and six other former U.S. Army pilots offer their services to Poland in the 1919-1920 Soviet-Polish war. The Americans call themselves the Kosciuszko Squadron – a squadron that will live on in the Polish Air Force after the Americans go home.

1939
Sept. 1 – Germany invades Poland. Britain and France declare war on Germany to begin World War II.

September 17– Under the 1939 treaty between Germany and Soviet Russia, the Red Army invades Poland from the east. Their country doomed, members of the Kosciuszko Squadron and thousands of other Polish military head for France to fight again.

1940
June – France falls, and Polish airmen escape to Britain.

August 2 –One of two all-Polish squadrons is formed at Northolt, outside London. The RAF calls it the 303 Squadron, but Polish pilots prefer “the Kosciuszko Squadron.”

August 31 – After weeks of training, the Kosciuszko Squadron sees its first combat in the Battle of Britain; shoots down six German planes.

Sept. 7 – On the first day of the London Blitz, the Kosciuszko Squadron is credited with fourteen German kills, an RAF record.

October 31 – At the end of the Battle of Britain, the Kosciuskzko Squadron is credited with shooting down 126 German planes in six weeks of combat, more “kills” than were credited to any other squadron attached to the RAF during that same period. Nine of the KoKciuszko Squadron pilots become aces; five are awarded the RAF’s Distinguished Flying Cross.

1941
June 22 – Germany invades the Soviet Union, in the process driving the Red Army out of Poland.

July 30 – Poland signs a treaty with the Soviet Union at the behest of Winston Churchill.

September – New Polish army formed in USSR by Poles who had been deported earlier to Soviet gulags and collective farms. These Poles later become the Polish II Corps based in the Middle East.

1943
April 13 – German troops find the bodies of more than 4,000 Polish officers buried in Katyn forest in western Russia; Germany claims the Soviets are responsible for the murders.

April 19 – Jewish insurgents begin climactic phase of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

April 26 -- After the Polish government-in-exile asks for an International Red Cross investigation of Katyn, the Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Poland.

November – Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt secretly agree at the Tehran Conference to cede eastern Poland to Stalin.

1944
May 18-- The Polish II Corps captures Monte Cassino, opening the door to Rome.

August 1 –Poland’s Home Army launches an uprising in Warsaw against the city’s Nazi occupiers.

October – After two months of fighting without Allied help, the Home Army in Warsaw surrenders. Warsaw residents are sent to German labor and concentration camps; the city is razed.

1945
February – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin agree at Yalta that Poland should be governed by a provisional, Soviet-backed Communist regime.

May 7 – Germany surrenders; WWII in Europe is over.

July 5 – The United States and Britain withdraw formal recognition from the Polish government-in-exile in London and recognize the Soviet-backed, communist regime in Warsaw as the legitimate government of Poland.

1946
June 8 – The British government bars Polish forces under British command from marching in the Victory Parade out of fear of offending Stalin.

November 27 – The Kosciuszko Squadron is disbanded.

1989
Poland regains its independence.