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| 1950, April 10 |
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| The Communist Party was outlawed. | 1 |
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| 1951, May 16 |
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| After Victor Paz Estenssoro (b. 1907) of the MNR won presidential elections on a platform calling for agrarian reform and nationalization of the mines, a military junta led by Gen. Hugo Balliván seized power. | 2 |
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| 1952, April 9 |
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| A revolt in La Paz led by students, workers, and the national police, and bolstered by tin miners from the countryside, overthrew the junta of Gen. Balliván after three days of bloody fighting. The revolt, which became known as the BOLIVIAN REVOLUTION, was organized by the middle-class-based MNR. Paz Estenssoro, MNR leader, was sworn in as president on April 16 and began a series of major reforms. Universal suffrage (including women's suffrage) was introduced. The military was largely dismantled, and weapons were distributed to a civilian militia composed mainly of peasants and miners. Land seizures initiated autonomously by peasant groups were officially approved and eventually totaled over 10 million hectares. Indian and peasant groups asserted their identity as political actors. Mines of the tin oligopoly were nationalized into the state-controlled Mining Corporation of Bolivia (COMIBOL). | 3 |
| Despite strong initial backing from worker, peasant, and middle-class groups, the MNR's base weakened as the leftist workers sought more state reform and as middle-class leaders, under pressure from the U.S., sought to minimize the reforms. Solidarity among mineworkers and peasants evaporated as poor peasants were enlisted to break up labor strikes. Although briefly creating a system of joint labor-state management, Victor Paz Estenssoro soon ended worker participation in COMIBOL, invited foreign participation in the economy, and sought U.S. aid (much of it used to rebuild the army). | 4 |
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| 1956, June 17 |
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| The candidate of the ruling MNR, V.P. Hernán Siles Suazo, was elected president. Suazo used U.S. aid to form a new conservative army that would offset the power of the revolutionary civilian militias. | 5 |
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| 1960, June 5 |
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| Victor Paz Estenssoro succeeded Siles Suazo as president. During his second term he increasingly used the new army to suppress the Left, students, and workers, fracturing the MNR even further. | 6 |
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| 1962, April 16 |
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| Bolivia canceled diplomatic ties with Chile because of a 23-year fight concerning the use of the waters of the Lauca River. | 7 |
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| 1963, June 17 |
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| Bolivia formally withdrew from the OAS council because of the body's “mishandling” of the border dispute with Chile. | 8 |
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| Dec. 12 |
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| After several miners were kidnapped by government agents, miners and members of the miners' Housewives Committee seized a U.S. labor attaché and several others at a COMIBOL meeting. After long negotiations, the Housewives agreed to release the Americans. | 9 |
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