Timeline of Goan history


This is a timeline of Goan history. It overlaps with the histories of other regions in South Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and colonial powers that influenced the region, including Kingdom of Portugal.

Stone Age

  • , B.P. Arrival of modern Homo sapiens in the basin of Mandovi and Zuari as evidenced from Acheulean handaxes.
  • B.P. Stone Age of Goa, cave dwellings, hunter-gatherer society, humans migrate from the river banks towards the coast in search of sea salt, the first rudimentary petroglyphs, birth of shamanism and cult of earth goddess
  • Micro > Neolithism > Megalithism
  • B.P. Critical and exciting period of Goan Neolithism and Chalcolithism, the nomadic people of Kushavati culture, golden age of petroglyphs and rock art in Goa; shamanistic nomadic society, animal trappers, fishers, discovery of edible plants, tubers, mushrooms, worship of ant hill goddess, a nature worship, origin of Dhalo; origin of Perni jagor mask dance drama, a smooth transition of Neolithic to megalithic society towards the end
  • B.P. Drop in sea level, Marine fossil beds at Bambolim, Siridao, Camurlim, etc.
  • B.P. entry of horses and pottery in Goa, megalithism, first attempts to make salt from sea water, silt based farming in river valleys, development of trade routes, influence and contact with Indus civilization, Harappan seafarers

Antiquity

  • c. 1000–800 BC Primitive agriculture: the Kumeri or burn and shift agriculture and the reclamation of coastal mangroves for preparing khazan lands, probable birth of Gaonkaris of Goa, common land ownership, Iron Age in Goa, first ploughs.
  • 500 BC Jainism and Buddhist influence in south India spreads to Goa
  • up to 200 BC Imperial Mauryan rule
  • up to AD 200 Imperial Satavahanas of Pratishthan, Western Kshatrapas Roman trade contacts, beginning of Arab trade in horses
Age of dynastic rule-golden period of maritime history
  • AD 200–400 many minor dynasties and feudatories
  • AD 400–600 Bhojas of Chandor
  • AD 500–800 Badami Chalukyas, Konkan Mauryas, etc., embassy to Persia. Boost in horse trade, migration of Kaundinya seafarers from Goa to south east Asia

Middle Ages

  • AD 800–1000 Shilahara branches, imperial Rashtrakutas of Malkhed, Spread of Arab trading settlements
  • AD 1000–1330 Goa Kadambas,

Islamic influence

  • 1326–1380 Bahamani rulers
  • 1380–1472 Under Vijayanagara rule the Hindu ruler started construction of temples in Goa on Buddhist temples all the way to Kanada present-day Karnataka
  • 1472–1510 Adilshahi rule
*
*

Portuguese India

1500s

1600s

1700s

  • 31 May 1756 - Abbé Faria was born. A Luso-Goan Catholic monk became one of the pioneers of the scientific study of hypnotism.
  • 1770 - Fontainhas was established in Panjim by Antonio Joao de Sequeira.
  • 5 August 1787 – Denunciation of the Conspiracy of the Pintos, an event in which a section of the local population sought to fight Portuguese rule in Goa. Curiously, Fr. José Vaz from Anjuna was among the priests denounced and detained.

1800s

  • 1802–1813 - Several British Army troops are posted in different corners of Goa to protect it from a possible French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. British Cemetery near the Governor's Palace at Dona Paula is a legacy of this period.
  • 1818 - The New Testament was translated into Konkani in Roman script.
  • 21 December 1821 – Goa's first newspaper Gazetta de Goa was published by the Government printing press in Goa, the Imprensa Nacional which was an official government document containing local and international news.
  • 14 June 1822 - At 1822 Portuguese legislative election, three "Deputados" representing Portuguese India were elected namely Bernardo Peres da Silva, :pt:Constâncio Roque da Costa, both Goans and :pt:António José Lima Leitão, a Portuguese.
  • 29 October 1826 – the Government suspended Gazetta de Goa publication.
  • 15 September 1832 - Goa State Central Library is inaugurated by Viceroy Dom :pt:Manuel de Portugal e Castro as "The Publica Livraria of the Academia Militar de Goa".
  • 27 May – 6 June 1835 – Bernardo Peres da Silva, first native prefect of Portuguese India, was expelled by the White-dominated military in Goa and he departed to Bombay. While in exile, he sought financial aid from a Goan opium trader named Rogério de Faria, and set out with an expeditionary force. However, because of miscalculation of the monsoons, the fleet was destroyed upon the rocks of Vengurla. Despite this stumbling block, Peres da Silva won re-election for three subsequent terms to the Portuguese Parliament in Lisbon. Though he expressed unhappiness because his fellow members of parliament ignored him and were often absent during his pleas for the civil rights of Goa and Goans, he did not cease to campaign for Goa. He is buried in the cemetery of Prazeres in Portugal.
  • 13 June 1835 to 30 November 1837 – a government journal the Chronica Constitucional was published
  • 7 December 1837 – brought into existence the Boletim do Governo do Estado da India a weekly paper which was later renamed the Boletim Oficial do Estado da India. It remained a weekly from September 1879 and April 1880 when it came out three times a week until 1 May 1882. It became a daily paper until 30 November 1887, when it once again reverted to its three times a week status until 1897 and finally twice a week. In 1899 the paper did not carry any news or historical items.
  • 1841 - Panjim post office was notified to be the head post office of Goa.
  • 5 November 1842 – Escola Medico-Cirurgica de Goa was established. This was probably the first medical school of Western medicine in Asia. The school was started as Hospital Militar at Pangim or Nova Goa. The graduates of Goas medical school made significant contributions in the field of medicine in Goa and beyond it, particularly in Africa where they worked as general practitioners and specialists in various branches of medicine.
  • 1843 - The capital of Goa was shifted from Velha Goa to Nova Goa and Panjim town was elevated to the status of a city on 22 March 1843 making it the oldest civic institution in Asia.
  • 1852 – 1855 – Dipaji Rane revolted against the Portuguese. He captured the fort of Nanuz in Sattari and launched his attacks from there. This went on for around five years. Finally the Portuguese authorities made peace with Dipaji Rane and pardoned all the rebels restoring their rights.
  • 1858 – Bernardo Francisco da Costa founded his own printing press in Margão and published O Ultramar, the following year; it was Goa's first privately published newspaper.
  • 1866 - Os Brahamanes was written by Francisco Luis Gomes and became the first Goan to publish a novel.
  • 1868 - Banco Nacional Ultramarino opens its first Goan branch at Panjim. Currently State Bank of India is operating through the same structure.
  • 1869 – 71 – A revolt was led by Kustohba Rane. He wreaked havoc in the Portuguese territories for two years. He was assassinated outside his house on 13 June 1871.
  • 1870 - The Goa civil code was introduced after Portuguese Goa and Damaon were elevated from being a mere province to the status of a Província Ultramarina.
  • 1878 - Under the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1878, Mormugao was identified as having one of the best natural harbours and the work of modernising the port was undertaken by The Western Indian Portuguese Guaranteed Railway Company. The work began in 1878 and the Mormugao Port was commissioned in 1885. The treaty allowed British India to have monopoly over the salt trade in Goa. Moreover, contraction of the Goan economy took place due to the large scale emigration of Goans to British India, mostly to Bombay. The treaty was terminated in 1892.
  • 23 January 1886 - Pope Leo XIII, through the bull Humanae Salutis Auctor, invested the Archbishop of Goa with the honorary title of Patriarch of the East Indies. António Sebastião Valente became the first Patriarch of the East Indies.
  • 1887 - The first English medium high school of Goa, St. Joseph High School, Arpora was established by William Robert Lyons, a Jesuit scholar.
  • December 1887- A meter-gauge railway track of 43 km between Mormugao-Sanvordem via Vasco da Gama was inaugurated. In 1888 it was extended till Castle Rock Railway Station.
  • 21 September 1890 - Vasco Guedes de Carvalho e Meneses ordered his armed men to fire upon the civilians who had gathered around the Holy Spirit Church, Margao to protest the malpractices done by the government during the Camara Municipal de Salcete election held earlier on that day. 23 Goans lost their lives.
  • 17 April 1892 - Costancio Lucasinho Caridade Ribeiro from Assagao along with João Agostinho Fernandes from Borda, Margao and Caetaninho Fernandes of Taleigao presented the first tiatr performance ever, Italian Bhurgo, adapted from an Italian operetta, was staged at the New Alfred Theatre, Bombay. On 17 April 1996, first Tiatr Dis was celebrated by Kala Academy.
  • 27 October 1892 - Swami Vivekananda arrived in Goa. He studied at Rachol Seminary and also visited several prominent temples over a course of week's time.
  • 1895 -The first original tiatr script was written and directed by João Agostinho Fernandes, entitled The Belle of Cavel or Sundori Cavelchi in Bombay. He was conferred the title Pai Tiatrist.

1900s

Recent history

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

  • 16 January 2000 – The Archdiocese of Goa and Daman received its first Patron, St. Joseph Vaz. He is also known as the Apostle of Canara and Sri Lanka. It was in Sri Lanka that he exercised his outstanding missionary work, having died there in 1711.
  • 5 March 2000 - Goa State Legislative Assembly Complex, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
  • 5 June 2000 – MV River Princess drifted and got grounded near Candolim coast.
  • 8 June 2000 - St. Andrew's Church, Vasco was bombed as part of the series of church bombings in south India. Police and investigating authorities blamed the Islamist extremist group Deendar Anjuman. But in 2009, the accused were acquitted.
  • 20 August 2000 - 1st World Goa Day was celebrated on the occasion of inclusion of Konkani in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India as per the Seventy-First Amendment on 20 August 1992.
  • 24 October 2000 - BJP's Manohar Parrikar becomes the 10th Chief Minister with the help of rebel Congress MLAs.
  • 2000 - Anil Kakodkar, son of Purushottam Kakodkar, took the charge of Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India. In May 2010, he became the first recipient of the Gomant Vibhushan Award, Goa's highest civilian award.
  • 2000 - The construction of Salaulim Dam was completed. It now serves Sanguem, Quepem and Salcette.
  • March 2001 - Lata Mangeshkar was awarded Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award thereby becoming the first Goan origin person to win the award.
  • June 2002 - BJP won 17 seats of 2002 Goa Legislative Assembly election. Congress got 16, UGDP 3, MGP 2, Nationalist Congress Party 1 and 1 independent. Manohar Parrikar was sworn in as the Chief Minister of the BJP led coalition.
  • August 2002 - The City Of Panaji Corporation Bill was passed which upgraded Panaji Municipal Council into a corporation.
  • 1 October 2002 – A collision between two IL-38 naval reconnaissance aircraft over Goa near Dabolim Airport killed 12 naval personnel and five people on the ground in India's worst military air accident. Goa is home to the Indian Navy's aviation wing, and has also been witness to a number of crashes by the Sea Harrier aircraft.
  • January 2003 - Park Hyatt Goa is established in Cansaulim. It became the first Park Hyatt in India. Later ITC Limited acquired it and renamed it to ITC Grand Goa.
  • 17 April 2003 - Prashil Varde, a marine engineer who had returned from Hong Kong tests SARS positive and became the first Indian to get infected of it. He was later cured and was discharged from Goa Medical College and Hospital.
  • 12 December 2003 – Filipe Neri Ferrão is appointed as the Archbishop of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Goa and Daman by Pope John Paul II, after the resignation of Archbishop Raul Nicolau Gonçalves.
  • 9 January 2004 - Fitz Remedios Santana de Souza, a Kenyan lawyer was conferred with Pravasi Bharatiya Samman and became the first Goan to be conferred with the honour.
  • 2004-Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, an autonomous Deemed university which focuses primarily on higher education and research in engineering and sciences establishes its campus at Zuari Nagar, Goa.
  • 23 July 2004 - The Bourne Supremacy is released. Its opening scenes were shot at Palolem, Panjim and Candolim.
  • May 2004 - At 2004 Indian general election, North Goa elected Shripad Yesso Naik of BJP and South Goa elected Churchill Alemao of INC.
  • July 2004 - Ashvek Vintage World was set up at Nuvem. It is Goa's only vintage car museum.
  • 15 September 2004 - First trial run of Margao Skybus Metro was conducted. Later, on 24 September during its run it met with an accident which led to one death and 2 injured. The project was a failure and the structure was dismantled in 2013.
  • 29 November 2004 – 35th International Film Festival of India held in Goa, from 29 November to 9 December. This is the first time that Goa is hosting the event, which used to be traditionally hosted in New Delhi.
  • 2004 - Alessha, a Konkani film directed by Rajendra Talak. It won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Konkani at the 52nd National Film Awards. Aleesha was the first film to win this award.
  • 28 February 2005 – Fall of the Goa government of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been in power since 2000 end.. A complex parliamentary power struggle in the western state of Goa culminated on 28 February with the resignation both of Bharatiya Janata Party -elected Speaker of the state assembly Vishwas Satarkar and his deputy, preventing the holding of a vote of confidence in the administration headed by Pratapsingh Rane of the Congress party. The crisis began in late January after the United Goans Democratic Party—Secular-Mickky merged with the ruling BJP, enlarging the latter's majority in the assembly. However, after chief minister Manohar Parrikar then dismissed one of his ministers, while four BJP legislators resigned from the party and the assembly, extending their support to Congress. But a determined chief minister Parrikar refused to give up office, claiming he still enjoyed the majority. After further defections and arcane procedural manoeuvres, State Governor S.C. Jamir on 2 February dismissed Parrikar's government and installed Rane as chief minister, even though the former had claimed to have technically won a confidence vote. On appointing Rane, Jamir asked him to prove his majority through a confidence vote within a month, leading to allegations of bias by the ousted BJP.
  • 4 March 2005 – President APJ Abdul Kalam in New Delhi approved the imposition of President's Rule in Goa after the Congress chief minister Pratapsingh Rane won a controversial confidence vote earlier in the day solely by enlisting the support of the assembly Speaker whilst also preventing a BJP member from voting.
  • 7 June 2005 – Veteran Congress politician Pratapsinh Rane was sworn in as chief minister of the western state of Goa, after Congress and its allies on 5 June won four out of five by-elections to state assembly seats, giving them a majority in the 39-member assembly with a total of 21 seats. This brought to an end President's Rule imposed in March to resolve a political crisis. The fact that the Congress was also in power in New Delhi, and that its nominee was in power in the decisive Governor's office, was not inconsequential. As of 2020, Pratap Singh Rane is the longest serving CM of Goa.
  • 2005 - Shantaram Naik of INC was elected as the Rajya Sabha MP from Goa.
  • March 2006 - Curchorem-Sanvordem communal riots took place on 3 and 4 March following the damage to a Muslim prayer house at Guddemol-Curchorem on 1 March. During the two days, protestors clashed with the police and a number of people, including policemen, were injured in the riots. It continued till Central Industrial Security Force stepped in. Nearly 50 vehicles and over 30 houses and shops, mostly owned by the Muslim community, were also damaged in the process. 40 accused were acquitted in 2012 due to lack of evidence.
  • 25 November 2006 - Pope Benedict XVI with Cum Christi Evangelii made the Diocese of Sindhudurg, a suffragan of Goa and Daman, together with which it formed a new ecclesiastical province.
  • 2006 - Ravindra Kelekar was awarded Jnanpith Award, highest literary honour in India, for his "outstanding contribution towards literature" in Konkani.
  • 2006 - 1st AstroTurf stadium of Goa, Chowgule Sports Centre of Parvatibai Chowgule College was opened.
  • November 2007 - Francisco Sardinha of INC was elected from South Goa by-election of the 14th Lok Sabha.
  • June 2007 - 2007 Goa Legislative Assembly election. INC in alliance with NCP and Save Goa Front formed the government. 14 BJP, 2 MGP, 2 independents and UGDP formed opposition. Digambar Kamat was appointed as the 11th Chief Minister of Goa.
  • 25 November 2007 - Alvito D'Cunha of East Bengal became the first Indian goalscorer of I-League.
  • 28,29 December 2007 - Sunburn Festival held its first edition at Candolim Beach with Carl Cox, Above & Beyond and Axwell as headline acts.
  • 4–7 February 2008 - The Government of Goa instituted the annual "Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi Festival of Ideas" to commemorate his birth centenary. The speakers included Hamid Ansari, Prof Romila Thapar, Meera Kosambi, P. Sainath and Dr.Vivek Monteiro.
  • 2008 - Dempo S.C. won the inaugural edition of I-League.
  • 1 May 2008 - Swapnil Asnodkar becomes first Goan to make debut in IPL by representing Rajasthan Royals.
  • 5 July 2008 - Wax World Museum was inaugurated at Old Goa.
  • September 2008 - 108 ambulance service of GVK EMRI was launched with 13 ambulances in Goa.
  • 20 April 2009 - Mahanand Naik, the serial killer who is now accused of having killed 18 women was arrested. He has been acquitted in many of them but was convicted for 3 murders.
  • May 2009 - At 2009 Indian general election, North Goa elected Shripad Yesso Naik of BJP and South Goa elected Francisco Sardinha of INC.
  • August 2009 - Goa Broad Band Network is launched.
  • September 2009 - A 28-year-old woman from Canacona became the first Goan fatality of Swine flu in Goa.
  • 2009 - Cashew feni was awarded Geographical indication registration as a speciality alcoholic beverage. It is the first product of Goa to receive GI tag.

2010s

2020s

  • January 2020 - Four Tiger carcasses were found. They were poisoned by the villagers of Golauli, Sattari. Five locals had been arrested but were later released on bail.
  • 13 February 2020 - Goa entered the 2019–20 Ranji Trophy quarterfinals after topping the 2019–20 Ranji Trophy Plate Group. This is Goa's best ever finish in the Ranji Trophy.
  • 19 February 2020 - FC Goa topped the ISL league stage and won the first ever ISL League Winners Shield and also became the first-ever Indian club to qualify for the AFC Champions League group stage.
  • 22 March 2020 - Goa went into lockdown after government of India announced Janata Curfew. Goa extended it further by two days and later 21 days nationwide lockdown followed.
  • 25 March 2020 - 53-year-old hailing from Guirdolim, became the first Goan to die of COVID-19 in Hounston, United Kingdom.
  • 1 June 2020 - Mangor Hill, Mormugao is declared as a Containment-zone after two of its residents test positive.
  • 22 June 2020 - Goa reported its first COVID-19 death of an 85-year-old from Morlem, Sattari.
  • 1 June 2020 – 30 September 2020 - Goa witnessed the highest annual seasonal rainfall of 4,203.7mm in its recorded history. The previous record of 408 cm in 1961 was broken.
  • 12 September 2022 - Eight of the 11 Congress MLAs in the Goa Assembly defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party including former CM Digambar Kamat
  • October 2023 - Goan Cashew got GI Indication
July 24, 2023 - Goa High Court Orders Tiger Reserve in Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary
  • 6 April 2024 - Congress announced Adv.Ramakant Khalap and Capt.Viriato Fernandes as North and South Goa Lok Sabha Candidate respectively.Former Minister Alina Saldanha joined Congress.
  • 7 May 2024 - The voting for third phase of Lok Sabha election was held in Goa.
  • 4 June 2024 - Lok Sabha Election results declared BJP'sShripad Naik and Congress's Captain Viriato Fernandes elected MP of North Goa and South Goa respectively.