Timeline: Life of Osama bin Laden

Osama Bin Laden and a man identified as Muhammad Atef in an undated image released by the United States Attorney's office in New York in 1998.

(Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan early on Monday, President Barack Obama announced.

1957 - Osama bin Mohammad bin Awad bin Laden born in Riyadh, one of more than 50 children of millionaire businessman. There are conflicting accounts of his precise date of birth.

1976 - Studies management and economics at university in Jeddah.

Dec 26, 1979 - Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. From 1984, bin Laden is involved in Peshawar-based Services Office to support Arab volunteers arriving to fight Soviet forces.

1986 - Bin Laden moves to Peshawar, begins importing arms and forms his own small brigade of volunteer fighters.

1988 - Al Qaeda (The Base) is established as a magnet for radical Muslims seeking a more fundamentalist brand of government in their home countries and joined in common hatred of the United States, Israel and U.S.-allied Muslim governments.

1991 - Bin Laden leaves Saudi Arabia and goes into exile, having opposed the kingdom's alliance with the United States against Iraq.

June 1993 - Bin Laden family moves to expel Osama as shareholder in its businesses, which focus on construction.

April 9, 1994 - Saudi Arabia, angered by bin Laden's propaganda against its rulers, revokes his citizenship.

May 1996 - Bin Laden is forced to leave Sudan after U.S. pressure on its government, and goes to Afghanistan.

August 1996 - Bin Laden issues a fatwa, or religious decree, that U.S. military personnel should be killed.

October 1996 - U.S. brands bin Laden as a prime suspect in two bombings in Saudi Arabia which killed 24 U.S. servicemen and two Indians.

August 7, 1998 - Truck bombs explode at U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killing 224, including 12 Americans.

August 20, 1998 - President Bill Clinton names bin Laden as America's top enemy and accuses him of being responsible for the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings. U.S. launches missile strikes against what Clinton calls terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan. One destroys a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, whose owner denies any affiliation with bin Laden.

October 12, 2000 - Al Qaeda strikes at destroyer USS Cole, harbored at Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen sailors are killed.

September 11, 2001 - Three hijacked planes crash into major U.S. landmarks, destroying New York's World Trade Center and plunging into the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane crashes in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people are killed. In a video released later, bin Laden says the collapse of the towers exceeded al Qaeda's expectations.

September 17, 2001 - U.S. President George W. Bush says bin Laden is "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

October 7, 2001 - United States attacks Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, host to bin Laden and al Qaeda.

December 6, 2001 - Anti-Taliban forces capture bin Laden's main base in Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

September 10, 2002 - Al Jazeera broadcasts what it says is the voice of bin Laden praising the 9/11 hijackers as men who "changed the course of history."

November 2002 - Al Qaeda claims responsibility for three suicide car bombs in Kenya which blew up the Mombasa Paradise resort hotel, popular with Israelis, killing 15 people and wounding 80.

October 2004 - Bin Laden bursts into the U.S. election campaign in his first videotaped message in over a year to deride Bush.

January 2006 - Bin Laden's first public message for over a year is a bid to show he is still in command of al Qaeda.

September 2006 - Bush vows "America will find you."

September 2007 - Bin Laden issues first new video for nearly three years, telling U.S. it is vulnerable despite its power.

May 18, 2008 - Bin Laden urges Muslims to break the Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and fight Arab governments that deal with Israel.

January 24, 2010 - Bin Laden claims responsibility for the failed December 25 bombing of a U.S.-bound plane in an audio tape and vows to continue attacks on the United States.

March 25, 2010 - Bin Laden threatens al Qaeda will kill any Americans it takes prisoner if accused September 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, held by United States, is put to death, according to an audiotape aired on al Jazeera.

January 21, 2011 - Bin Laden says in an audio recording that the release of French hostages held in Niger by al Qaeda depends on France's soldiers leaving Muslim lands.

May 2, 2011 - Osama bin Laden is killed in a million-dollar compound in the resort of Abbottabad, 60 km (35 miles) north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Sources: Reuters; open-source material; Steve Coll: "The Bin Ladens"

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; editing by Mark Trevelyan)