TIMELINE: Myanmar's slow road to a new constitution

(Reuters) - Myanmar's military government will hold a referendum on a new constitution in May this year followed by multi-party elections in 2010, the first in two decades, state television announced on Saturday.

Here is a chronology tracing the former Burma's contentious constitutional affairs since its independence.

1947

- July 19, 1947 - General Aung San, Suu Kyi's father and the architect of Burma's independence from Britain, is assassinated in Yangon along with six members of his pre-independence cabinet.

- Jan 4, 1948: The Union of Burma declares independence. A new charter establishes a bicameral parliament.

- March 1962: General Ne Win launches a military coup. He discards the constitution and establishes a Revolutionary Council of military leaders who rule by decree.

- March 1974: A new constitution transfers power from the armed forces to a People's Assembly of former military leaders headed by Ne Win. It allows for a unicameral legislature and one legal political party. Ne Win is installed as President.

- 1988: Ne Win resigns as decades of economic strife and ethnic tensions boil over into anti-government riots. The military takes direct power under the name the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), and annuls the constitution.

- June 19, 1989: The military government changes the official name of the country from Burma to the Union of Myanmar.