TIMELINE: Financial crisis since November

(Reuters) - Here is a chronology of the global financial crisis since November:

November 4 - Democratic candidate Barack Obama wins in the U.S. presidential election, ending a source of uncertainty for global investors.

November 6 - The Bank of England cuts rates by 1.5 points to 3 percent, the lowest level in more than half a century. The ECB reduces its benchmark interest rate by 0.5 percentage point to 3.25 percent.

November 12 - Bank of England says that Britain's economy will shrink sharply in 2009 and that inflation could be less than 1 percent.

November 13 - Germany says its economy, Europe's largest, contracted by 0.5 percent in the third quarter, putting it in recession for the first time in five years.

November 15 - World leaders pledge rapid action at a G20 summit to rescue a weakening global economy, setting out plans to toughen oversight of major global banks and to try for a breakthrough in trade talks by year's end.

November 17 - Japan becomes the latest major economy to fall into recession, with France close behind.

November 23 - The United States announces a rescue package for Citigroup Inc, agreeing to shoulder most losses on about $306 billion of the bank's risky assets. A further $20 billion of new capital is offered the next day.

November 24 - Britain's finance minister Alistair Darling, says he will cut sales tax and extend help for small businesses, low earners and households in a package worth 20 billion pounds.

November 25 - The U.S. Federal Reserve unveils an $800 billion plan to buy mortgage-related debt and back consumer loans. Of this, $600 billion is to buy mortgage-related debt and securities. The remainder is to support consumer debt securities.

November 26 - European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso proposes a 200 billion euros ($264 billion) fiscal stimulus package to revive the group's struggling economies.

December 1 - The U.S. economy had slipped into recession in December 2007, says the National Bureau of Economic Research, a prestigious private research group.

December 2 - The BoJ unveils 3 trillion yen ($32 billion) in new measures to ease an acute squeeze in corporate funding.

December 4 - The ECB drops its benchmark rate by 0.75 percentage point to 2.50 percent, the euro zone's biggest cut ever.

-- The BoE slashes interest rates by 1 percentage point to two percent, the lowest level since 1951.

December 9 - Canada's central bank cuts its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 1.5 percent, the lowest it has been since 1958. The bank also says the country is now entering a recession.

-- Japan's Sony Corp says it will cut 16,000 jobs, curb investment and pull out of businesses to save $1.1 billion a year. The job cuts are the biggest announced by an Asian company so far.

December 11 - Bank of America Corp says it plans to eliminate 30,000 to 35,000 jobs over three years, reflecting its pending purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co and weaker business activity.

-- The U.S. Senate refuses to back a $14 billion rescue package for America's top auto makers. General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC needed immediate aid to avert a collapse, while Ford Motor Co wanted a hefty line of credit.

December 12 - In Brussels, a European Union summit commits to an economic stimulus package worth about 1.5 percent of total EU output or around 200 billion euros ($264 billion).