Belgium: Historical Dates
| AD 768-814 | Belgium was an important part of Charlemagne's empire. |
| 1384-1477 | Belgium was under the control of the House of Burgundy. |
| 1516 | Belgium and the Netherlands came under Spanish control. |
| 1581 | Belgium remained under Spanish rule, but the Netherlands declared independence. The Belgian economy was hurt by lost trade with the Netherlands. |
| 1713 | Austria assumed control of Belgium after the War of the Spanish Succession. |
| 1794 | French troops drove the Austrians from Belgium. Austria formally ceded Belgium to France in 1797. |
| 1815 | Napoleon I of France met his final defeat at Waterloo in central Belgium. Belgium became part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. |
| 1830 | Belgium declared its independence from the Netherlands. |
| 1885 | King Leopold II established the Congo Free State. The colony supplied Belgium with raw materials for its growing industrial sector. |
| 1914 | Germany violated Belgium's neutrality by invading at the start of World War I. Many battles of the war were later fought in Belgium. |
| 1940 | Belgium was again invaded and defeated by Germany during World War II. It was liberated in 1944. |
| 1952 | Belgium was a founding member of the European Coal and Steel Community, which became the European Economic Community in 1957, with headquarters in Brussels. |
| 1971 | A new constitution formally recognized Belgium's French-, Dutch-, and German-speaking communities. |
| 1993 | A constitutional revision made Belgium a federal state. Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels each became semi-autonomous regions. |