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| 1849, Feb. 21 |
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| Defeat of Afghan forces and their Sikh allies by the British in the Battle of Gujrat. The Afghans had hoped to gain the district of Peshawar in the event of victory. British India proceeded to annex the Punjab and Peshawar, establishing a de facto boundary with Afghanistan that was not formalized for more than 40 years. | 1 |
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| 1855, March 30 |
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| Treaty of friendship with British India, which confirmed the British annexation of Peshawar and the Punjab. Dost Muhammad renounced expansion into British India. | 2 |
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| 1863–64 |
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| The first newspaper was published in Afghanistan. | 3 |
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| 1863–66 |
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| SHIR ALI (FIRST REIGN). The accession of Dost Muhammad's son, Shir Ali, who had been governor of Herat, was opposed by various half-brothers. In 1866, two of them, Muhammad A’zam and Muhammad Afdal, drove him out of Kabul. He retreated to Herat. | 4 |
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| 1866–68 |
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| Rule of Muhammad A’zam (1866–67) and Muhammad Afdal (1867–68). Shir Ali, with the help of his son, Muhammad Ya’qub, recovered Kabul and Qandahar in 1868. | 5 |
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| 1868–79 |
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| SHIR ALI (SECOND REIGN). He instituted the office of sadr-i a’zam (prime minister) and established a 13-member advisory council. Instead of allowing his sons to oversee provincial taxation, he appointed bureaucrats responsible directly to him. He founded a regular postal service between Kabul and the outside world and opened the first public school in the capital. | 6 |
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| 1878–79 |
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| SECOND BRITISH-AFGHAN WAR. The acceptance by the Afghans of a Russian diplomatic mission led by Maj. Gen. Stoletov prompted a British ultimatum to the Afghan ruler, demanding his agreement to a permanent British diplomatic agency in Kabul (Nov. 2, 1878). The ultimatum was ignored, a British-Indian force entered Afghanistan, and Shir Ali fled to Russian territory after naming his son Muhammad Ya’qub as regent. In the Treaty of Gandamak (May 26, 1879) Muhammad Ya’qub agreed to accredit a permanent British mission at Kabul, to cede the Khyber Pass to British India, and to surrender to Britain Afghanistan's external sovereignty. An Afghan uprising led to the renewal of the war a few months later. The British retook Kabul, deposed Muhammad Ya’qub (Oct. 1879), and placed on the throne Abd al-Rahman Khan, a nephew of Shir Ali. | 7 |
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| 1880–1901 |
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| ABD AL-RAHMAN KHAN. His reign tightened Kabul's central control through 4 civil wars and 100 major and minor rebellions. These military campaigns depended upon a larger standing army. To this end, Abd al-Rahman Khan recruited about 79,000 men out of a total population of 6 million. The state budget reflected this priority, with more than half of its revenue being used to pay military salaries. The British government exported guns and gunpowder to the government of Afghanistan during this period. | 8 |
| Abd al-Rahman Khan also reshaped Afghanistan's state bureaucracy, detailing specific duties for each section of the government and its appointees. The country was divided into six large provinces and subdivided into districts. A series of internal highways and bridges was constructed to further his policy of unification. Most of his efforts to modernize transportation routes were, however, confined to areas close to Kabul. | 9 |
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| 1884 |
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| Conquest of the khanate of Maymana. | 10 |
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| 1885 |
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| At the request of Abd al-Rahman Khan, Mawlawi Ahmadjan Khan, a court official, compiled two handbooks detailing the responsibilities of judges and provincial governors. The chief judge became an employee of the state whose behavior could be closely regulated. In urban areas Islamic legal courts were administered by local judges, many of whom were state appointees, but in rural areas customary tribal codes continued to prevail. | 11 |
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| 1893–95 |
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| Demarcation of Afghanistan's boundaries. The Durand Agreement (Nov. 12, 1893) defined the southern borders, while the northern borders were established by an agreement signed by Britain and Russia (March 11, 1895), describing their respective spheres of influence. | 12 |
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| 1895 |
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| Abolition of slavery in Afghanistan. | 13 |
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