TIMELINE: Zapatero as Spanish prime minister
(Reuters) - Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is hoping to achieve a second term as Spanish prime minister in a parliamentary election on Sunday.
A darkening economic outlook and the end of a housing boom have set the stage for a close race.
Here is a short chronology of events in Spain since 2004:
March 11, 2004 - Ten bombs kill 191 people and wound hundreds in simultaneous explosions on the Madrid railways.
March 12 - Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar links the Basque separatist group ETA to the attacks.
March 14 - A video tape purportedly from al Qaeda says it bombed the trains in retaliation for Spain's cooperation with U.S. President George W. Bush and his allies in the war in Iraq.
-- Spaniards throw out Aznar's centre-right government in a spectacular election upset. Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero becomes prime minister in April.
April 3 - Seven men including two suspected ringleaders of the bombings blow themselves up in an apartment in a suburb of Madrid as police close in. All are believed to be Arabs.
May 21 - The last Spanish troops leave Iraq. The pullout fulfils an election pledge by Zapatero, who opposed the Iraq war and branded the occupation "a fiasco".
October 10 - Zapatero appeals to ETA to give up the fight after the arrest of its suspected leader, Mikel Albisu Iriarte, alias "Mikel Antza".
February 2005 - Spain's parliament rejects Basque premier Juan Jose Ibarretxe's plan for virtual Basque independence.
June 30 - Spain approves a law legalizing gay marriage, despite rejection in the upper house and fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church.
January 31/February 1, 2006 - Zapatero becomes the first prime minister in 25 years to officially tour Melilla and Ceuta, two Spanish enclaves on Morocco's Mediterranean coast that Morocco claims as its own. They hit the headlines in October 2005 when African migrants tried to storm fences in a bid to reach Europe.
March 22 - ETA declares a "permanent ceasefire".
December 30 - Hundreds of thousands protest in Madrid against the Socialists' liberalization of laws on divorce and abortion.
December 30 - A car bomb explodes at Madrid's airport, killing two people and forcing Zapatero to break off a peace process with ETA.
January 9, 2007 - ETA claims responsibility for the bomb, but says its ceasefire declaration still stands.
February 25 - Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the ETA-linked Batasuna party, says ETA will not demand major concessions from Spain to restart peace talks.
-- Zapatero dismisses the offer, and says ETA and its supporters must convince Spain they have given up violence.
June 5 - ETA announces the end of its ceasefire.
October 31 - A Spanish court finds 21 people, mostly Moroccans, guilty of involvement in the 2004 bombings, including two Moroccans and a Spaniard who receive life sentences for terrorist murder or procuring explosives for a terrorist attack.
February 14, 2008 - Zapatero meets the Pope's representative to discuss relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the government.
March 7 - Suspected ETA guerrillas shoot dead Isaias Carrasco, a former Socialist councilor, in the Basque Country town of Mondragon. Political parties end their campaigns a day early as a mark of respect.
March 9 - Parliamentary election.
(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
