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The following is the chronology of the People's Republic of China in the past six decades.

1949:

-- On Oct. 1, the central people's government of the PRC was established in Beijing.

From Sept. 21 to 30 in Beiping (now Beijing), the first plenary of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was held and exercised the functions and powers of the National People's Congress (NPC) to present the people's will. At the session, a provisional constitution entitled the Common Program of the CPPCC was adopted. It selected Beiping as the new republic's capital and changed its name to Beijing. It made the five-star red flag the national flag, chose the March of the Volunteers as the national anthem, and decided that China would adopt the Gregorian calendar.

At the session, the council of central people's government was elected with Mao Zedong as the chairman, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Song Qingling, Li Jishen, Zhang Lan and Gao Gang as vice chairpersons. Other 56 people were elected council members.

At 2:00 p.m. on Oct. 1, the government council held the first meeting. At the meeting, the council agreed to adopt the CPPCC Common Program as the governance guideline, elected Lin Boqu as the council's general secretary, Zhou Enlai as premier and foreign minister, Mao Zedong as chairman of the People's Revolutionary Military Council, Zhu De as the commander in chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), Shen Junru as president of the Supreme People's Court, Luo Ronghuan as procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

At 3:00 p.m. on the same day, the founding ceremony was held at the Tian'anmen Square in central Beijing. Mao Zedong announced the founding of the PRC's central people's government. Since then, Oct. 1 was chosen as the National Day.

-- On Oct. 2, the Soviet Union government decided to establish diplomatic relations with the New China. Three days later, the two countries appointed ambassadors to each other. From October 1949 to January 1950, the PRC established diplomatic relations with Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Mongolia, German Democratic Republic, Albania and Vietnam. By the end of 1951, other eight countries, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Finland also set up diplomatic ties with the New China.

-- On Dec. 16, Mao Zedong arrived in Moscow on a two-month visit to the Soviet Union. On Feb. 14, 1950, the two nations signed a mutual-aid treaty of Sino-Soviet friendly alliance and an agreement on Soviet Union loans to China.

1950:

-- On Jan. 6, the military committee of Beijing municipality announced that it would take back military properties of foreign nations in the city. In January and April, it withdrew and confiscated military properties of the United States, France, the Netherlands and Britain. In June and September, the committees of Tianjin and Shanghai also took back French military properties. Thus, the Western powers' privilege to post armies in the Chinese mainland was totally revoked.

-- On April 14, the headquarters of the PLA Navy was founded with Xiao Jinguang as the commander.

-- On May 1, the Marriage Law took effect as the republic's first law. It banned forced marriage, discrimination over women and neglect of legal rights and interests of children. It promoted freedom of marriage, monogamy, equality between man and woman and protection of female and children.

-- On Oct. 8, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army was formed and Peng Dehuai was appointed as the commander. On Oct. 19, the army marched into the Korean Peninsula to help Korean people fight against the United States. On July 27, 1953, an armistice agreement was signed.

1951:

-- On May 23, the representatives of the central people's government and Tibetan local government signed an agreement of peaceful liberation of Tibet which proclaimed Tibet was liberated in a peaceful way. On Oct. 26, the PLA marched into Lhasa.

-- On Oct. 12, the first volume of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong was published. The second, third and fourth volumes were published in April 1952, April 1953 and September 1960 respectively.