30 of 30 events · showing 1–20
Island country in South Asia
1410–1411
The Ming–Kotte War was a military conflict between the expeditionary forces of Ming China and the Sinhalese Kotte Kingdom in the southern territories of Sri Lanka. The conflict happened when Ming China's treasure fleet arrived at Sri Lanka in 1410 or 1411.
1527–1658
Between 1518 and 1658, armed conflict took place between the native Sinhalese kingdoms of Sri Lanka (then known to Europeans as Ceylon), and the Portuguese Empire. It spanned from the Transitional to the Kandyan periods of Sri Lankan history.
8 March 1640 – 13 March 1640
The Siege of the Portuguese fort Santa Cruz de Gale at Galle in 1640, took place during the Dutch–Portuguese and Sinhalese–Portuguese Wars. The Galle fort commanded 282 villages, which contained the most fertile cinnamon lands in southern Sri Lanka It was also an important strategic coastal defense of Portuguese Ceylon.
12 April 1782
The Battle of Providien was the second in a series of naval battles fought between a British fleet, under Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes, and a French fleet, under the Bailli de Suffren, off the coast of India during the Anglo-French War. The battle was fought on 12 April 1782 off the east coast of Ceylon, near a rocky islet called Providien, south of Trincomalee.
25 August 1782 – 3 September 1782
The Battle of Trincomalee was fought between a British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes and a French fleet under the Bailli de Suffren off the coast of Trincomalee, then Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), on 3 September 1782. It was the fourth in a series of battles fought between the two fleets off the coast of the Indian subcontinent during the American Revolutionary War.
1817–1818
The Great Rebellion of 1817–1818 (Sinhala: ඌව වෙල්ලස්ස මහා කැරැල්ල), also known as the 1818 Uva-Wellassa Rebellion (after the two places where it had started), was the third Kandyan War in the Uva and Wellassa provinces of the former Kingdom of Kandy, which is today the Uva province of Sri Lanka. The rebellion started against the British colonial government under Governor Robert Brownrigg, three years after the Kandyan Convention ceded the Kingdom of Kandy to the British Crown.
1833
The 1833 Sumatra earthquake occurred on November 25 at about 22:00 local time, with an estimated magnitude in the range of 8.8–9.2 Mw. It caused a large tsunami that flooded the southwestern coast of the island.
1848
The Matale rebellion, also known as the Rebellion of 1848, took place in Matale city, Ceylon against the British colonial government under Governor George Byng, 7th Viscount Torrington. It marked a transition from the classic feudal form of anti-colonial revolt to modern independence struggles.
31 March 1942 – 10 April 1942
The Indian Ocean raid (Operation C, the Third Mobile Operation in the Indian Ocean and the Battle of Ceylon in Japanese) was a sortie of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) from 31 March to 10 April 1942. Japanese aircraft carriers (Admiral Chūichi Nagumo) struck Allied shipping, naval bases and airfields around British Ceylon but failed to find most of the Eastern Fleet.
1956–2009
The Tamil genocide refers to the framing of various systematic acts of physical violence and cultural destruction committed against the Tamil population in Sri Lanka during the Sinhala–Tamil ethnic conflict beginning in 1956, particularly during the Sri Lankan civil war as acts of genocide. Various commenters, including the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, have accused the Sri Lankan government of responsibility for and complicity in a genocide of Tamils, and point to state-sponsored settler colonialism, state-backed pogroms, and mass killings, enforced disappearances and sexual violence by the…
4 December 1974
Martinair Flight 138 was a charter flight of Martinair from Surabaya to Jeddah with a stopover in Colombo. On 4 December 1974, the Douglas DC-8 operating the flight crashed into a mountain in Sri Lanka shortly before landing, killing all 191 people aboard – 182 passengers, all of whom were Indonesian Hajj pilgrims, and nine crew members.
15 November 1978
Loftleiðir Flight 001 was a Hajj charter flight operated by a Douglas DC-8 which crashed on approach to Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 15 November 1978. The crash killed 183 out of 262 passengers and crew members.
22 December 1982
A referendum on extending the term of parliament by six years was held in Sri Lanka on 22 December 1982. It was the first and so far only national referendum to be held in the country.
23 July 1983 – 18 May 2009
A civil war was fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers) led by Velupillai Prabhakaran.
23 July 1983 – 29 July 1987
Eelam War I (23 July 1983 – 29 July 1987) is the name given to the initial phase of the Sri Lankan civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE.
3 May 1986
Air Lanka Flight 512 was an Air Lanka (now SriLankan Airlines) flight from London Gatwick Airport via Zurich and Dubai to Colombo (Bandaranaike International Airport) and Malé, Maldives (Malé International Airport, now Velana International Airport). On 3 May 1986, the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar serving the flight was on the ground in Colombo, about to fly on to Malé, when an explosion ripped the aircraft in two, destroying it.
1987–1989
The 1987–1989 JVP insurrection, also known as the 1988–1989 revolt, was an armed revolt in Sri Lanka led by the Marxist–Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) against the Government of Sri Lanka, then led by the right-wing United National Party (UNP). The insurrection, like the previous one in 1971, was unsuccessful.
1990 – 9 January 1995
Eelam War II refers to the second phase of the Sri Lankan civil war between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, lasting from June 1990 to 1995. The war erupted after the breakdown of peace talks between the LTTE and the government of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, during which mutual distrust and provocations escalated tensions.
11 June 1990
On 11 June 1990, the militant organisation Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) carried out a massacre of unarmed police officers in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province. LTTE members allegedly killed over 600 officers that day.
3 August 1990
The Kattankudy Mosque Massacre was the killing of over 147 Muslim men and boys on 3 August, 1990. Around 30 armed Tamil militants raided two mosques in Kattankudy (Meer Jummah Mosque, Kattankudy-01 & Hussainiyya Mosque, Manchanthoduwai) where over 300 people were prostrating in Isha prayers.