| April 21, 1729 | Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst born. She later ruled Russia under the name Catherine name Catherine II |
| 1756-1763 | Seven Years’ War. This was an important factor in bringing the Germans to the Lower Volga to establish colonies. The areas of now central Germany were devastated, creating more instability for the peasants |
| June 28, 1762 | Catherine II ascends the throne of Russia |
| December 4, 1762 | First Manifesto issued by Catherine II. invited foreign settlers to come Russia. This manifesto brought few results.
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| July 22, 1763 | Catherine II issued her Second Manifesto inviting foreigners to settle in Russia. It spelled out the conditions under which they could immigrate and granted special rights and privileges. Large numbers of German peasants accepted the invitation.
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| 1764-1767 | Founding of German colonies along the Lower Volga River. |
| 1771-1774 | Kirghiz Raids and Pugachev’s rebellion, called the Pugachevshchina, ravished the Volga colonies.
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| 1786 | Mennonites from West Prussia began immigrating to Russia due to the 1772 Partition of Poland, which threatened their military service exemption as conscientious objectors. Their settlements were established primarily in the Taurida region of South Russia. |
| 1793 | Second Partition of Poland grants area of Volhynia to Russia. Polish landowners invite German peasants to lease land for cultivation. |
| November 6, 1796 | Death of Catherine II at age sixty-seven. |
| 1796-1801 | Reign of Tsar Paul I, son of Catherine II. |
| 1801-1825 | Reign of Tsar Alexander I, the well-beloved, grandson of Catherine II. |
| February 20, 1804 | AJexander I reissues manifesto of Catherine II, with some limitations, inviting foreigners to settle in New Russia. |
| 1825-1855 | Reign of Tsar Nicholas I, Grandson of Catherine II, and brother of Alexander I. |
| 1855-1881 | Reign of Tsar Alexander II, great-grandson of Catherine II, son of Nicholas I. |
| 1860’s | Another wave of Germans immigrates to Volhynia prompted by the 1861 abolishment of serfdom which left a significant drain on the work force in this and other areas. The Second Polish Insurrection of 1863 brought more Polish Germans to Volhynia and other areas of Russia. |
| June 4, 1871 | Imperial Russian Government issues decree repealing the Manifestos of Catherine II and Alexander I, terminating, after a period of ten years’ grace, the special privileges of the German colonists. |
| January 13, 1874 | Imperial Russian Government issues second decree which amended the one of June 4, 1871. The second decree instituted compulsory military conscription for the German colonists. These two decrees impelled thousands of German Russians to immigrate to North and South America. |
| 1871 | Germany unified as a nation for the first time. This created great unease among the European nations and Russia. This is also the time of increased animosity towards foreigners in Russia due to the slavophile movement and growing nationalism in Russia. |
| 1881-1917 | Reign of Tsar Nicholas II, great-great-great-grandson of Catherine II. He abdicated during World War I. On July 16, 1918, he and his immediate family were executed by the Bolsheviks. Nicholas II was the last monarch to rule Russia. |
| July 28, 1914 | Outbreak ofWorld War I. |
| 1915 | Volhynian Germans deported to Volga Region and South Russia as a result of advancement of eastern front during World War I. |
| December 13, 1916 | Volga Germans ordered to be banished. This order was never carried out because of internal troubles in Russia. |
| February, 1917 | Revolution comes to Russia. |
| November 7, 1917 | Bolshevik Revolution in Russia led by Nikolai Lenin and the beginning of the Communist regime, October 25, 1917 by old-sty1e Russian Calendar. |
| June 29, 1918 | Lenin established Autonomous Volga German Workers’ Commune, forerunner to the ASSR of the Volga Germans, founded in 1924. |
| 1920-1923 | Period of famine in Russia claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. Death by starvation in the Volga-German colonies estimated at 166,000 lives, one third of the population. American Relief Administration provided assistance. |
| January, 1924 | Autonomous Socialistic Soviet Republic of the Volga Germans establised. |
| 1928-1933 | Second period of famine again claims many lives throughout Russia. |
| 1928-1940 | German farms and property expropriated by the Soviet governement and Germans are forced into collective farms or migrate to the cities. Period of Stalinization. |
| September 1, 1939 | Outbreak ofWorld War II. |
| August 20, 1941 | Beginning of the banishment and exile of the German populations in Russia. Crimean Germans deported. |
| August 28, 1941 | Decree ordering the deportation of the Volga Germans to the northeastern parot of the European Soviet Union, to the Middle Asia, and to Siberia. |
| October, 1941 | Germans in the North and South Caucasus deproed. St. Petersburg Germans also deported. |
| 1991 | Fall of the Soviet Union. |