TIMELINE: Libya: 40 years of choppy relations with the West

(Reuters) - Libya celebrates 40 years since Muammar Gaddafi came to power in a coup against King Idris on September 1, 1969.

Here is a timeline of relations between the West and Libya since Gaddafi came to power:

1970 - Libya closes U.S. and British military bases.

1980 - Demonstrators sack U.S. embassy in Tripoli.

1981 - U.S. fighter planes shoot down two Libyan jets over the Gulf of Sirte, which Libya claims as territorial waters. U.S. President Ronald Reagan accuses Libya of sending a squad to kill him.

April 1984 - Shots fired from Libyan embassy in London kill a policewoman guarding demonstrators protesting against Gaddafi. Britain cuts diplomatic ties.

January 1986 - United States halts economic and commercial ties with Libya, freezes Libyan assets in the United States.

-- April - Libya blamed for bombing West Berlin disco used by U.S. servicemen, killing three people and injuring over 200.

-- April - U.S. aircraft bomb Libya, killing more than 40 people, including Gaddafi's adopted baby daughter.

December 21, 1988 - Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York is blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.

September 1989 - Bomb downs a French airliner over Niger, killing 170 people. In 1999, France convicts six Libyans in absentia. Tripoli denies responsibility.

November 14, 1991 - U.S. and Britain accuse Libyans Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima of Lockerbie bombing. Libya denies involvement.

March 1992 - Security Council Resolution 748 tells Libya to surrender suspects by April 15 or face worldwide ban on air travel and arms sales and restrictions on diplomatic presence.

April 1999 - Libya hands over the suspects in the Lockerbie bombing. They stand trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law. The EU suspends sanctions, but U.S. sanctions remain.

Jan 2001 - Three judges unanimously find Megrahi guilty of murder and acquit Fahima. Megrahi given mandatory life sentence to be served in a prison in Glasgow.

March 2003 - Libya reaches political agreement with the United States and Britain to accept civil responsibility and pay up to $10 million per victim, $2.7 billion in total.

-- August - Libya, in a letter to the United Nations, accepts responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. Security Council lifts sanctions the next month.

-- December - Libya announces it will abandon weapons of mass destruction programs and open its territory to international weapons inspectors.

March 2004 - Tony Blair becomes the first British prime minister to visit Libya since Winston Churchill during World War Two.

-- June - U.S. resumes diplomatic ties after 24 years.

-- September - President George W. Bush formally ends U.S. trade embargo on Libya but maintains some U.S. terrorism-related curbs.

-- October - EU foreign ministers agree on full lifting of the EU-Libya arms embargo imposed in 1986.

May 2006 - The United States says it will restore full diplomatic ties with Libya.

August 2008 - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signs a deal in Benghazi under which Italy will pay $5 billion in compensation for its colonial misdeeds.

September 2008 - Condoleezza Rice meets Gaddafi in Tripoli during the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to Libya since 1953.

April 2009 - Libya signs an agreement with Britain to allow the transfer of prisoners between the two countries, removing an obstacle to any future deal to repatriate Megrahi.

-- June - Gaddafi makes a controversial first visit to former colonial power Italy. The next month Gaddafi and U.S. President Barack Obama shake hands during a G8 summit in Italy.

-- August - Megrahi is set free on compassionate grounds and arrives home to a hero's welcome. The next day, Britain condemns celebrations in Tripoli to mark Megrahi's return. Obama says the hero's welcome given Megrahi in Libya was "highly objectionable."

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)