Here you'll find reports from the Turkish dailies, some stuff from international papers and anything else we think is relevant. Please remember that this is a country involved in a full scale guerilla war and not all the news is printed.

• 1969 - Islamist leader Necmettin Erbakan founds the National Order Party and campaigns on an Islam-based agenda.
• 1971 - The Constitutional Court outlaws the National Order Party for breaches of the secularist constitution.
• 1973 - Erbakan founds the National Salvation Party. He serves in coalition governments through the 1970s.
• September 12, 1980 - The armed forces stage a coup, banning all political activity. Erbakan and other leaders are jailed.
• 1983 - Military withdraws. Erbakan founds the Welfare Party.
• 1987 - Bans on pre-coup leaders lifted; Erbakan becomes leader of the Islam-based Welfare Party.
• December 24, 1995 - Welfare comes first in general election.
• July 8, 1996 - Welfare-led coalition wins confidence vote, starting a stormy year in office.
• January, 1997 - Welfare promotes Islamist agenda during Moslem holy month of Ramadan, pledging to lift headscarf ban in public workplaces and build mosques in secularist strongholds.
• February 28 - The military-dominated National Security Council (NSC) demands the government halt Islamist policies.
• May 21 - Chief prosecutor Vural Savas applies to constitutional court to have Welfare closed.
• June 18 - Islamist-led government collapses.
• January 16, 1998 - The Constitutional Court outlaws Welfare for attempting to subvert the secularist constitution and bans Erbakan from political leadership for five years.
• February 24 - Virtue Party begins life as parliamentary party; ex-Welfare deputies flock to the newly-established group.
• May 14 - Recai Kutan appointed Virtue Party chief. Erbakan is still thought to hold the controls.
• August 5 - Virtue leader Recai Kutan announces the party may field headscarved women as candidates at general elections.
• March 22, 1999 - A prosecutor applies to the chief prosecutor's office to ban Virtue, arguing it is a continuation of Welfare.
• April 18 - Virtue suffers losses at general elections.
• May 2 - Virtue deputy Merve Kavakci enters parliament in a headscarf, drawing vehement protest from secularist deputies.
• May 6 - Aydin Menderes resigns from the Virtue Party.
• May 7 - Chief prosecutor Vural Savas asks the Constitutional Court to close Virtue, arguing it is a "hub of anti-secularist activities."
  
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