| March 5th 1924 or April 1925 | Jacques Vergès is born in Thaïland. |
| 1928 | His mother dies of tropical fever. Vergès moves to Réunion Island. |
| 1941 | He receives a Baccalauréat Philosophy. |
| 1942 | He leaves for Liverpool where he joins General De Gaulle’s infantry and fights in Morocco, Algeria, Italy and France. |
| May 8th 1945 | Massacres at Sétif. |
| 1945 | Vergès studies History and Oriental Languages at the Sorbonne. |
| 1946 | He joins the Communist Party. First marriage to Karine. |
| 1949 | President of the Association of Colonial Students. Meets Saloth Sar/Pol Pot and Eric Honecker. |
| 1949 | Attends his first trial. His empathy for the accused compels him to become a lawyer. |
| 1950 | The Communist Party sends Vergès and his wife to Prague to direct the International Student Union. There he meets Stalin. |
| 1952 | Vergès visits India as a communist and meets Indira Gandhi and Nehru. |
| 1954 | Elected Prime Secretary of the Conference of the Order of Lawyers of the Paris Bar. Beginning of the Algerian War. |
| 1955 | First important trial Vergès defends a group of communist students who attempted to prevent the departure of recruits to Algeria and wins. |
| June 20-22 1956 | Wave of individual attacks in Algiers. |
| August 10th 1956 | “Ultra” bomb in Algiers resulting in dozens of Muslim victims. |
| September 30th 1956 | Beginning of the FLN offensive in Algiers against the European community with the attacks on ‘Milk-Bar, ‘Cafeteria’ and ‘Otomatic’ depicted in The ‘Battle of Algiers‘. |
| 1957 | Vergès leaves the Communist Party due to its support for French foreign policy in Algeria. He creates the Collective of French Lawyers in service of the political doctrine of the FLN. |
| February 10th 1957 | FLN bombs in stadiums. |
| April 13th 1957 | Djamila Bouried is arrested, interned and tortured for 17 days at Maillot hospital. |
| April 27th 1957 | Vergès meets Djamila for the first time in the presiding judge’s office. |
| July 11th 1957 | Djamila appears before the miitary tribunal. |
| July 15th 1957 | End of the trial. Djamila and her co-condemned are found guilty and fully responsible. They are sentenced to death. |
| September 24th 1957 | Yacef Saadi, responsible for the Autonomous Zone in Algiers (ZAA), is arrested. |
| November 1957 | Publication of the manifesto “For Djamila Bouhired“ by Jacques Vergès and Georges Arnaud (letter from De Gaulle on the December 8, 1957 congratulating the authors). |
| March 13-14 1958 | Djamila is pardoned by French President René Coty, and transferred to the Maison Carrée. |
| May 13th 1959 | An anonymous threat is sent to all the lawyers of the collective Oussedik, Vergès, Ben Abdallah, Courrégé, Beauvillard, Radziewski, Ould Aoudia, Zavrian. |
| May 21st 1959 | Ould Aoudia is murdered in his office in Paris. |
| May 26th 1959 | Second death threat. |
| August 1959 | Publication of the ‘list of the disappeared’. Vergès is banished from Algiers courts for having published the list. |
| February 1960 | Vergès, Courrégé and Zavrian flee to Geneva when Oussedik is imprisoned. |
| September 5th 1960 | ‘Trial of the baggage carriers’ before the Permanent Tribunal of Armed Forces. The ‘Jeanson trial’. |
| November 1960 | Vergès is suspended for one year and sentenced to two months in prison (suspended sentence) for posing a threat to state security. |
| 1961 | Vergès is wounded during a demonstration denouncing the assassination of Lumumba, for which Moïse Tschombé was responsible. |
| October 17th 1961 | Violent repression of Algerian demonstrations in Paris ordered by the Prefect of Police, Maurice Papon. Many victims are thrown into the Seine. |
| 1961 - 1962 | Vergès is exiled in Morocco. He acts as advisor to certain African countries. |
| 1962 | Djamila Bouhired is released from prison. |
| March 18th 1962 | Signature of the Evian Accords. Algerian independence. |
| September 29th 1962 | Ben Bella comes into power. |
| February 2nd 1963 | founding of “African Revolution”, the weekly magazine of the FLN. |
| March 30 1963 | Vergès visits Mao in China for the newspaper for two weeks (article in edition number 9 with a report signed by Djamila Bouhired and Jacques Vergès). |
| September 1963 | Mohammed Harbi becomes the director of “African Revolution“. Vergès returns to Paris to found the monthly paper “Revolution - Africa – Latin America - Asia”, financed by China and the “treasure of the FLN”. The headquarters is on rue François 1er in Paris with offices in Cuba, Beijing, London, Lausanne and New York. |
| Spring 1965 | Marries Djamila Bouhired. |
| June 19th | Boumedienne’s military coup overthrows Ben Bella. |
| 1965 – 1966 | Defense of Mahmoud Hedjazi the first fedayin arrested and sentenced by Israel. |
| 1967 | Foundation of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) by Georges Habbache and Waddi Haddad, following the defeat of the ‘Six Day War’. |
| June 30th 1967 | Kidnapping of Moïse Tschombé, his plane hijacked and rerouted to Algeria. Vergès agrees to defend him. |
| December 26th 1968 | Maher Souleiman and Mahmud Mohamad, members of the PFLP, lead a grenade and machine gun attack at the Athens airport against an El Al airplane. One Israeli is killed and several other passengers wounded. Vergès takes on the defence of Souleiman and Mohamad at the request of the Algerian government. |
| February 18th 1969 | Four members of the PFLP (Waddi Haddad ) attack an El Al Boeing jet at Zurich airport.the Winterthur trial. Vergès takes on their defense. Genoud takes care of contact with the Waddi Haddad organisation and the families.The terrorists are arrested, and a trial is planned for December 1969 |
| April 28th 1969 | General De Gaulle resigns as President of the Republic. |
| July 1st 1969 | Suspicious death of Moïse Tschombé in a prison in Algiers. |
| February 1970 | Vergès disappears. He is last seen at a political meeting at the Mutualité in Paris. |
| May 1970 | Andréas Baader escapes. Foundation of the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF, Faction Armée Rouge, Red Army Faction) |
| June 23rd 1970 | Bruno Bréguet is arrested in Haïfa in possession of explosives, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison before being relased, then expelled from Israel in 1977. |
| 1971 | Boudia attacks an oil refinery in Trieste causing gigantic dammage; an Austrian refuge for emigrants in transit to Israel (target missed); an Israeli depot in Rotterdam (target missed) and several Holiday Inns in Jerusalem (operation aborted). |
| September 5th 1972 | Israeli athletes are massacred during the Olympic games in Munich. |
| June 28th 1973 | Car bomb attack on Mohammed Boudia, Waddi Haddad’man in Paris,he will be replaced by Moukarbel who will be killed and replaced by Carlos. |
| January 24th 1974 | Another Waddi Haddad operationCarlos throws a grenade at an Israeli bank in London, wounding one person. |
| September 15th 1974 | Carlos throws two grenades at a drugstore in Saint-Germain, killing two people and wounding thirty-four. |
| January 13th and 19th 1975 | 2 raids conducted by Carlos and Weinrich on behalf of Waddi Haddad against El Al airplanes stationed in Orly. Twenty-one wounded. |
| June 27th 1975 | Shooting at rue Toullier in Paris, where Carlos kills two DST police officers and his boss, Moukarbel. |
| December 21st 1975 | Taking of hostages on behalf of the PFLP (Waddi Haddad) during the meeting of the OPEC ministers in Vienna. Carlos, Anis Naccache and two German militants, including Hans Joachim Klein of the Revolutionäre Zellen (RZ) make up part of the commando unit. |
| June 27th 1976 | Under the orders of Waddi Haddad an Air France plane is hijacked to Entebbe (Uganda) by a commando unit composed of Palestinians and Germans from the RZ who take passengers as hostages separating them from seventy Israelis. On the 4th of July, the Israelis conduct a raid, liberating the Entebbe hostages. A female passenger is assassinated by the Ugandans. |
| July 12th 1977 | A warrant for the arrest of RAF lawyer Klaus Croissant is issued in Germany. |
| October 13th 1977 | Hijacking of a Lufthansa Majorca-Frankfurt airplane by a Waddi Haddad group. The passengers are taken hostage and the plane re-routed to Mogadishu. The commando Halimeh demands the liberation of RAF militants and two Palestinian detainees being held in Istanbul. The operation results in the death of one person and ten wounded. |
| October 18th 1977 | The intervention of German special forces puts an end to the hostage situation in Mogadishu. Three of the four members of the Palestinian commando unit are killed. The next day Andréas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Karl Jaspe die (from gunshot and hanging) in the Stammhein prison in Stuttgart. Another RAF militant, Irmgard Möller, is incarcerated and severely wounded from multiple stabbings. |
| October 24th 1977 | First day of the Klaus Croissant trial in Paris. |
| November 16th 1977 | Klaus Croissant is extradited to Germany. |
| March 16th 1978 | Aldo Moro is kidnapped by the Red Brigades. |
| March 28th 1978 | Waddi Haddad dies in the GDR. |
| 1978 | Vergès reappears in Paris. |
| April 15th 1980 | Jean-Paul Sartre dies. |
| August 1981 | Anis Naccache’s commando unit (composed of two Iranians, one Palestinian, and one Lebanese) target Shapour Bakhtiar, the former prime minister of the Shah of Iran, in Paris. The operation fails but two police officers and an elderly neighbour are slain. |
| February 16th 1982 | During the course of a routine check in a parking lot, two police officers confront and arrest Bruno Bréguet (a Swiss citizen sought for his complicity with the PFLP) and Magdalena Kopp, lover and accomplice of Johannes Weinrich (one of the heads of the RZ)and of Carlos, for possession of explosives. |
| February 28th 1982 | Carlos writes a letter to Deferre (minister of the Interior), giving him one month for the liberation of Kopp and Bréguet. |
| March 10th 1982 | Anis Naccache receives a life sentence. |
| March 29th 1982 | Attack on the ‘Capitole’ a bomb derails a Paris to Toulouse train that Jacques Chirac was supposed to be riding, killing five people and injuring twenty-seven. |
| April 22nd 1982 | A car bomb explodes at 9 am on rue Marbeuf in front of the office of the pro-Iraq Lebanese newspaper ”Al Watan al Arabi”, leaving one dead and sixty-three wounded. |
| April 22nd 1982 | Opening at 9 am of the trial of Bruno Bréguet and Magdalena Kopp. They are sentenced to five and four years of prison, respectively. |
| August 9th 1982 | A machine gun attack on the Jewish restaurant ‘Goldenberg’ on rue des Rosiers in Paris, leaves six dead and twenty-two wounded. Abou Nidal claims responsibility for the attack. The SDECE (French Secret Service) believes he is acting on behalf of Carlos and the PFLP. |
| August 21st 1982 | Bomb attacks in Paris on American-owned vehicle claimed by the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Fraction leave two bomb disposal experts dead. |
| December 20-22nd 1982 | STASI documents meeting between Vergès, (‘Herzog’) and Carlos’ two lieutenants, Weinrich and Aboul Akam in East Berlin. The «liberation» of Kopp and Bréguet is discussed. |
| 1983 | The banker François Genoud asks Vergès to defend Klaus Barbie. Meanwhile Vergès continues to affirm that Barbie’s daughter is the one that asked him to defend her father. |
| July 15th 1983 | Attack on Orly airport claimed by the ASALA (Armenien independents)Turkish Airlines is targetedeight dead and sixty-three wounded. On July 18, 1983, Varoujan Garbidjian is arrested and defended by Vergès. On March 3, 1985, he is sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| August 16th 1983 | Attack by Weinrich,with the help of STASI who provided him with explosives, against La Maison de France in West Berlin. Markus Wolf head of STASI will later be sentenced to four years in prison for this. |
| December 1983 | Attack at St-Charles train station in Marseille. Two dead and twenty wounded. |
| 1984 | Hijackers of an Air France airplane in Teheran demand the liberation of Anis Naccache. |
| October 25th 1984 | Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, head of FARL, is arrested by the DST in Lyon. His mouvement executed six attacks in Paris between 1981 and 1984. |
| May 4th 1985 | Magdalena Kopp is released from prison. |
| 1986 | Vergès defends Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. |
| January 1986 | Negotiations for the anticipated liberation of Anis Naccache collapse. |
| 1986 | Series of attacks in Paris executed by the C.S.P.P.A (The Committee for Solidarity for Arab Political Prisoners) who demand the liberation of three of Vergès’s clients Varoudjan Garbidjian, Anis Naccache and Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. Iran, interested solely by Anis Naccache, hides behind the CSPPA. • February 3 : Galerie du Claridge – eight wounded; • February 4 : Gibert Jeune – five wounded; • February 5 : Fnac Sport des Halles – twenty two wounded; • March 17 : TGV Paris-Lyon – nine wounded; • March 20 : Galerie Point Show – two dead and twenty nine wounded; • September 8 : Post office Hôtel de Ville – one dead and twenty-one wounded; • September 14 : Pub Renault – two dead and one gravely wounded; • September 15 : Prefecture of police – one dead and fifty-six wounded; • September 17 : Tati rue de Rennes – seven dead and fifty-five wounded. |
| March 1st 1987 | G.I. Abdallah is condemned to life imprisonment for conspiring to commit acts of terrorism. |
| May 11th 1987 | The Barbie Trial opens. On July 3, 1987, he is sentenced to life. |
| 1989 | The trial of Action Directe, Lyon branch (Ollivier, Joëlle Crepet). |
| September 11th 1989 to 26th of January 1990 | Anis Naccache’s hunger strike. He drops from 75 to 48 kilograms. |
| July 27th 1990 | Anis Naccache is granted amnesty, then freed. His pardon is signed by President Mitterrand, and four million francs in indemnities are paid to the victims. |
| 1991 | Barbie dies at Jules Coumont hospital. |
| July 1992 | Vergès defends the FIS (Islamist Front of Salutation) in Algeria. |
| 1992 | Vergès defends Cheyenne Brando. |
| 1993 | Vergès defends Omar Raddad. |
| March 1993 | Klaus Croissant is condemned to twenty-one months of prison for espionage in the service of the RDA, based on information found in STASI archives. |
| August 14th 1994 | Carlos is kidnapped in Sudan while anesthesized for surgery. |
| 1996 | Vergès defends the Holocaust denier Garaudy. |
| 2001 | Vergès defends Gnassingbe Eyadema against Amnesty International who accused the president of Togo of having several dozen people ‘disappear’. He wins the case. |
| 2002 | Vergès tries to take part in Milosevic’s defence. |
| 2003 | Saddam is captured. Vergès proposes his services for Saddam’s defense. |
| February 2004 | Vergès takes on the defense of Khieu Samphan, former president of democratic Kampuchea, accused of crimes against humanity. |
| November 2005 | Vergès defends Schleicher of Action Directe. |