Timeline:
- 1965: Vietnam War with United States steadily escalates; Vietnamese communists continue to seek refuge in Cambodia
- 1969: US air raids of Cambodia begin
- 1970-75: Prince Sihanouk is overthrown as monarch; Lon Nol becomes president of Cambodia (US backs this regime); Prince Sihanouk joins forces with Khmer Rouge, which is slowly gaining power
- April 17, 1975: Khmer Rouge invade Phnom Penh and take over the city; Forced removal of urban dwellers to rural centers begins; Force unpaid agricultural labor, in conjunction with the Khmer Rouge's agrarian utopian ideologies begins; All dissidents, intellectuals, and Buddhist monks begin to be executed
- 1976: Massive starvation begins to settle in rural areas and forced labor, purges continue among Cambodian citizens
- 1977: Cambodia launches military attacks against Vietnam; Viet-Cambodian war ensues; Cambodia consistently denies border negotiations
- 1979: Vietnamese troops invade Phnom Penh and overthrow Khmer Rouge; rebel figure comes to power, but Khmer Rouge continues in attempt to, once again, take over government
- October 23, 1991: Paris Agreement signed by opposing forces in Cambodia (including Khmer Rouge); however, Khmer Rouge did not abide by all peace provisions
- 1993: Cambodia forms coalition government and holds general elections (all boycotted by Khmer Rouge)
- 1994: Khmer Rouge officially outlawed by Cambodian National Assembly
- 1998: Pol Pot dies
- 1999: Marked as the official end of Khmer Rouge
- 2001: Cambodian National Assembly passes law to create court in which genocidal crimes will be tried
- 2007: Court becomes fully operational
- November 20, 2007: Pre-trial begins of Duch, a Khmer Rouge head of prison where over 20,000 were executed
- 2010: Duch gets life sentence