9 August 2007
BNP Paribas freeze three of their funds, indicating that they have no way of valuing the complex assets inside them known as collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), or packages of sub-prime loans. It is the first major bank to acknowledge the risk of exposure to sub-prime mortgage markets. Adam Applegarth (right), Northern Rock's chief executive, later says that it was "the day the world changed"
Larry Elliott, economics editor, said: "As far as the financial markets are concerned, August 9 2007 has all the resonance of August 4 1914. It marks the cut-off point between 'an Edwardian summer' of prosperity and tranquillity and the trench warfare of the credit crunch – the failed banks, the petrified markets, the property markets blown to pieces by a shortage of credit"
14 September 2007
British bank Northern Rock has borrowed large sums of money to fund mortgages for customers, and needs to pay off its debt by reselling (or "securitising") those mortgages in the international capital markets. But now that demand for securitised mortgages has fallen, Northern Rock faces a liquidity crisis and it needs a loan from the British government. This sparks fears that the bank will shortly go bankrupt – prompting customers to queue round the block to withdraw their savings. It is the first run on a British bank for 150 years
A member of the court of the Bank of England, who asked not to be named
"At about 6.30pm, we were told there would be a meeting of court. Instead of coming to the bank, where we would be photographed coming in the front door, we were all to meet outside the McDonald's in Liverpool Street where we would be picked up in a people-carrier with darkened windows and driven in through the back of the bank. There were two problems with this. Firstly, Robert Peston had already broken the story about Northern Rock. Secondly, there were two McDonald's outside Liverpool Street. Half of us were outside one, and the rest of us were outside the other"
![Abandoned house in Antioch, California/foreclosures](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Business/Pix/pictures/2012/8/7/1344329514907/Abandoned-house-in-Antioc-005.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none)
24 January 2008
Analysts announce the largest single-year drop in US home sales in a quarter of a century
Sandra Michel, a nurse, nearly lost her home in 2008 – until Boston Community Capital stepped in. "The house cost $312,000 and we borrowed the whole amount. Then in 2008 my husband lost his job. It became hard to keep up with the mortgage payments. We were a couple of payments off. We asked them about modifying the loan, but they didn't want to work out anything with us"
17 February 2008
After the failure of two private takeover bids, Alistair Darling nationalises Northern Rock in what he claims will be a temporary measure. It will be nearly four years before it returns to the private sector
14 March 2008
The investment bank Bear Stearns is bought out by JP Morgan. It is the biggest casualty of the crisis so far
6 May 2008
Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary from 2006 to 2009, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: "I do believe that the worst is likely to be behind us"
7 September 2008
The US government bails out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – two huge firms that had guaranteed thousands of sub-prime mortgages
Larry Elliott, Guardian economics editor, writing in the aftermath
"Hank Paulson, secretary of the US treasury, did not take Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into public ownership because he has become a born-again socialist: he acted because he feared a systemic global financial crisis that would prompt the biggest depression since the 1930s . This is the biggest rescue operation since the credit crunch began – but it probably won't be the last"
![A lot from the Lehman Brothers: Artwork and Ephemera" sale at Christie's of London in September 2010](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2012/8/5/1344175511389/A-lot-from-the-Lehman-Bro-008.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none)
15 September 2008
Heavily exposed to the sub-prime mortgage market, the American bank Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy, prompting worldwide financial panic
Dick Fuld, the final chairman and CEO of the bank, was the focus of protesters' anger when he testified before the US House of Representatives about the effects of the collapse of Lehman Brothers
17 September 2008
The UK's largest mortgage lenders, HBOS, is rescued by Lloyds TSB after a huge drop in its share price
Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, at the time
"I am very angry that we can have a situation where a bank can be forced into a merger by basically a bunch of short-selling spivs and speculators in the financial markets. All financial regulators have got to wake up to where we are at the present moment"
21 September 2008
US investment banks are pummelled on the stock markets and Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase change their status to banking holding companies, marking the end of the investment banking model dominant during the noughties
25-29 September 2008
Two more American banks collapse – Washington Mutual and Wachovia
30 September 2008
Shortly after becoming the first European country to slide into recession, Ireland's government promises to underwrite the entire Irish banking system – a pledge that they were ultimately unable to uphold
![President Bush shakes hands with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, 2008.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Business/Pix/pictures/2012/8/7/1344331101913/President-Bush-shakes-han-008.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none)
October 2008
After days of wrangling in Congress, Hank Paulson pushes through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), which at that point bought or insured toxic sub-prime mortgage securities from the major banks
David Buik, market strategist, and consultant at Cantor Index
"We might have been critical of Hank Paulson. But with Tarp, he took a decision. And that has to be right. Markets cope very well with good news. They cope even better with bad news. They do not cope with uncertainty"
7-8 October 2008
Iceland's three biggest commercial banks – Glitnir, Kaupthing, and Landsbanki – collapse. To protect the deposits of their many British customers, Gordon Brown uses anti-terror legislation to freeze the assets of the banks' UK subsidiaries
8 October 2008
Amid the worst ever week for the Dow Jones, eight central banks including the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Federal Reserve cut their interest rates by 0.5% in a coordinated attempt to ease the pressure on borrowers
13 October 2008
To avert the collapse of the UK banking sector, the British government bails out several banks, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, and HBOS. The deal is thrashed out over the weekend, and well into the small hours of Monday morning
Paul Myners, City minister 2008-10
"RBS, HBOS and Lloyds were experiencing a professional bank run, where the markets were no longer willing to fund the UK banks. That's why we stepped in. We will never appreciate how close we came to a collapse of the banking system
7 November 2008
Figures show that 240,000 Americans lost their jobs in the last month
12 November 2008
After criticism from high-profile economists, Hank Paulson announces drastic changes to Tarp. He cancels the acquisition of toxic assets, and decides instead to give banks cash injections
Charles Ferguson, director, Inside Job, an Oscar-winning documentary about the banking crisis
"It was totally clear nobody knew what they were doing. Hank Paulson would change his plans and his public statements on approximately a daily basis. It also became clear that they were not going to punish people or change the nature of the system."
14 November 2008
The G20 meets for the first time since Lehman's went under, in a meeting that was compared in significance to the Bretton Woods summit in 1944
10 December 2008
"We not only saved the world …" In a slip of the tongue at PMQs, Gordon Brown reveals how highly he rates his role during the financial crisis
![French President Sarkozy, US President Obama and British PM Brown at the G20 summit, 2009](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Business/Pix/pictures/2012/8/7/1344330056831/French-President-Sarkozy--006.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none)
2 April 2009
The G20 agrees on a global stimulus package worth $5tn
27 August 2009
Adair Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, calls some banking activity "socially useless"
10 October 2009
George Papandreou's socialist government is elected in Greece. Just over a week later, he reveals that the hole in Greece's finances are double what was previously feared
27 April 2010
Greek debt is downgraded to junk
2 May 2010
In a move that signals the start of the Eurozone crisis, Greece is bailed out for the first time, after Eurozone finance ministers agree loans worth €110bn. This intensifies the austerity programme in the country, and sends hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets
28 November 2010
European ministers agree a bailout for Ireland worth €85bn
5 May 2011
The ECB bails out Portugal
21 July 2011
Having failed to get its house in order, Greece is bailed out for a second time
5 August 2011
S&P downgrades US sovereign debt
![Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank at last Thursday's press conference. Photo: AP/Michael Probst](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/8/6/1344261882517/6236be53-1154-4840-807e-1e8cec337f2e-460.jpeg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none)
12 February 2012
Greece passes its most severe austerity package yet
12 March 2012
The number of unemployed Europeans reaches its highest ever level
12 June 2012
The level of Spanish borrowing reaches a record high
26 July 2012
Unexpectedly, ECB president Mario Draghi, above, gives his strongest defence yet of the Euro, prompting markets to rally