mauritius+timeline


 * **1681** || The dodo bird was last seen on Mauritius. The dodo bird became extinct on Mauritius. In 2005 scientists reported the discovery of a complete skeleton of the bird on Mauritius. ||


 * **1968 Mar 12** || The British-ruled African island of Mauritius became an independent country within the Commonwealth of Nations and many Europeans left the country. GDP per person was about $200. By 2008 it rose to $7,000 per person. ||
 * **1968 Mar 12** || The British-ruled African island of Mauritius became an independent country within the Commonwealth of Nations and many Europeans left the country. GDP per person was about $200. By 2008 it rose to $7,000 per person. ||


 * **1986** || A US military base on the Mauritius island of Diego Garcia became fully operational and was intensely involved in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. In the 1960s and 1970s Britain destroyed houses, slaughtered animals, and turfed out some 2,000 inhabitants from the Chagos islands to Mauritius and the Seychelles. ||


 * **1987** || Mauritius opened a stock exchange. ||


 * **1988** || Mauritius formed a National Computer Board to spur technology. ||


 * **1992** || Mauritius launched itself as a financial center. ||


 * **2005 Jun 19** || Mauritius expected that by year's end, or soon afterward, to become the world's first nation with coast-to-coast wireless Internet coverage, the first country to become one big "hot spot." ||


 * **2008 Apr 20** || In Mauritius a conference of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) opened for talks on poverty and food prices. ||


 * **2009 Feb 16** || China’s Pres. Hu Jintao arrived in Mauritius to sign deals worth more than 270 million dollars to fund infrastructure projects on the Indian Ocean island. The next day he pledged continued aid to Africa despite his country's economic downturn, and wrapped up a four-nation visit to the continent ||


 * **2009 Aug 29** || The EU signed a temporary trade pact with Mauritius, Seychelles, Zimbabwe and Madagascar calling for tariffs on European goods to be removed over the next 15 years ||