The Whitewater Development Corp is dissolved, leaving Bill and Hillary Clinton with a loss of more than $40,000.

January 1994

Attorney General Janet Reno appoints Robert Fiske Jr. as the independent counsel in charge of investigating financial irregularities in the dealings of the Whitewater property company. The Clintons, and their business partners, James and Susan McDougal, are implicated.

August 1994

Fiske is replaced by the more conservative Kenneth Starr as the independent counsel investigating the Whitewater scandal.

July 1995

Monica Lewinsky graduates from Lewis and Clark College, and joins the White House staff as an unpaid intern.

November 1995

Ms Lewinsky accepts a paid job at the White House office of legislative affairs and, two days later, sexual contact between Ms Lewinsky and President Clinton begins. The affair continues, sporadically, for the next 18 months.

April 1996

Ms Lewinsky leaves the White House for public affairs post at the Pentagon.

May 1996

The first Whitewater trial ends with the conviction of the McDougals for fraud. A Senate hearing ends inconclusively a month later.

February 1997

Kenneth Starr, the Independent Counsel investigating the Whitewater scandal, announces he will step down from the investigation. He then changes his mind and continues his investigations.

May 1997

According to the Starr report released in September 1998, President Clinton tells Ms Lewinsky the affair is at an end. Just days later the Supreme Court reject Mr Clinton's claim that as President he should have immunity from civil cases. This ruling allows the Paula Jones harassment case to proceed against him.

August 1997

Linda Tripp is reported in Newsweek magazine as having seen White House staffer Kathleen Willey emerging from the Oval Office looking dishevelled but happy, and with her lipstick smeared. Mr Clinton's attorney, Robert Bennett, claims Ms Tripp is "not to be believed."

September 1997

Ms Tripp begins to tape her telephone conversations with Ms Lewinsky, who remains in touch with the President.

December 17, 1997

Ms Lewinsky is subpoenaed by lawyers for Paula Jones.

December 26, 1997

Ms Lewinsky leaves the Pentagon.

January 5, 1998

President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky have what proves to be their last telephone conversation. January 7, 1998

In a sworn affidavit, Monica Lewinsky denies having an affair with Mr Clinton, in an attempt to avoid testifying in the sexual harassment case brought by Paula Jones against President Clinton.

January 12, 1998

Tripp dismisses her lawyers, allegedly because they were "too close to the White House." She then contacts Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office, offering him 20 hours of taped conversations between herself and Lewinsky.

January 13, 1998

Ms Tripp is kitted-out with a hidden microphone by FBI agents for further conversations with Ms Lewinsky.

January 16, 1998

Janet Reno, the US Attorney General, approves the Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr's request for an expansion of the inquiry to include the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.

January 17, 1998

President Clinton, testifying under oath to lawyers in the Jones harassment case, denies having had an affair with Ms Lewinsky. He reportedly acknowledges having had an affair with Gennifer Flowers, a charge he previously denied.

January 19, 1998

Monica Lewinsky's name and the rumours linking her with Clinton are published on the Drudge report internet site. Drudge reveals that Newsweek obtained tapes of the Lewinsky-Tripp conversations but pulled their publication after pressure from Starr, who insisted his investigation would be jeopardised.

January 21, 1998

The Washington Post reports Lewinsky's allegations. President Clinton denies the charges in vague terms. There is no improper relationship," he tells a TV interviewer.

January 26, 1998

"I want you to listen to me. I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. I never told a single person to lie, not a single time, never," an angry President Clinton declares to an invited media audience at the White House.

January 29, 1998

President Clinton posts his highest ever opinion poll rating. Gallup for CNN find 67 per cent of Americans approve of the President (up five per cent from his previous best); just 28 per cent disapprove. Ms Lewinsky is only believed by 13 per cent of Americans.

March 13, 1998

Paula Jones' lawyers in the sexual harassment suit against Clinton publish much of their evidence, one of the many breaches of the judicial gagging order on this case.

March 15, 1998

Kathleen Willey, a former White House volunteer and key witness in the Jones harassment case, makes her first public comments about an alleged incident in 1991 when Mr Clinton is said to have fondled her against her will.

April 1, 1998

The Paula Jones harassment case against the President is dismissed by the judge before it goes to trial.

June 2, 1998

The possibility of a new immunity deal being struck between Ms Lewinsky and Prosecutor Starr is raised as Lewinsky's main lawyer, William Ginsburg is replaced by two well-known Washington criminal defence lawyers, Jacob Stein and Plato Cacheris. Both cleared former White House employees of corruption in the 1980s.

June 30, 1998

Ms Tripp begins giving evidence to the Washington grand jury investigating President Clinton's alleged cover-up of the affair. Polls show that only one in 10 Americans view her sympathetically.

July 28, 1998

Ms Lewinsky's lawyers announce that an immunity deal has been struck with independent counsel Starr. For Ms Lewinsky's "full and truthful testimony", she will receive transactional immunity  a legal blanket which means nothing she says can be used against her. She is questioned by the grand jury over the next 15 days.

July 29, 1998

President Clinton decides to testify voluntarily before the prosecutor over the allegations that he committed perjury in covering up a sexual affair with Ms Lewinsky.

August 3, 1998

Clinton is asked for a blood sample for DNA testing.

August 17, 1998

Bill Clinton testifies in the grand jury, acknowledging "inappropriate intimate contact" with Ms Lewinsky. But he insists the evidence he gave to the Jones case in January suit had been accurate.

September 8, 1998

Attorney-general Janet Reno announces a 90-day inquiry into whether Bill Clinton helped to plan a $44 million Democratic Party "issue ad" that breached election campaign spending laws.

September 9, 1998

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr releases his report to Congress. It has 11 possible grounds for impeachment. The House votes to make the 445-page report public.

September 11, 1998

Congress makes the report public.

September 18, 1998

Republicans vote to release the videotape of Mr Clinton's grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

September 21, 1998

The tape is released and broadcast on American cable channels across the country.

October 2, 1998

More evidence from Mr Starr's investigation is released, including the transcript of taped telephone conversations between Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp that triggered the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal in January.

October 5, 1998

The House Judiciary Committee votes to launch a congressional impeachment inquiry against President Clinton.

October 6, 1998

Erskine Bowles, the White House chief of staff, confirms he will leave his post at the end of the week. With senior policy advisor Rahm Emmanuel and press secretary Mike McCurry are also leaving. All three insist they have not resigned for political reasons.

October 8, 1998

The House of Representatives vote for impeachment proceedings to begin against Clinton. The House judiciary committee will be given wide powers to draw up detailed charges against Mr Clinton, based on 11 allegations by the independent counsel Kenneth Starr in his report on the Monica Lewinsky affair.

October 14, 1998

The House judiciary committee chairman Henry Hyde announces the impeachment inquiry will concentrate its focus on two core charges: that Mr Clinton lied under oath and attempted to obstruct justice.

October 17, 1998

Lawyers for Paula Jones make their final demand  $1 million as part of a $2 million settlement  in the sexual harassment case against President Clinton. Mr Clinton's lawyers have refused to pay more than $700,000.

November 13, 1998

Paula Jones drops her sexual harassment appeal against President Clinton in return for $850,000. The President makes no apology or admission of guilt.

November 19, 1998

Prosecutor Kenneth Starr offers his testimony to the House of Representatives judiciary committee. In a 132-minute address, Mr Starr alleges that President Clinton engaged in "an unlawful effort to thwart the judicial process". Meanwhile, on a trip to Tokyo, Mr Clinton is harangued on Japanese television for his infidelity by a Japanese housewife.

November 31, 1998

Tom Hanks, one of Hollywood's biggest - and wholesome - stars, publicly speaks of his regret at giving financial support to President Clinton's legal defence fund.

December 1, 1998

The House of Representatives judiciary committee widens the scope of its inquiry to include the election campaign fundraising issue. The Republicans use their majority on the committee to subpoena senior law enforcement officers, including the FBI director Louis Freeh, to broadening the impeachment inquiry into a dispute over President Clinton's campaign fundraising.

December 11, 1998

The House Judiciary Committee approves three articles of impeachment on a 21-16 party line vote, passing them to the full House of Representatives. The three articles accuse Clinton of lying to a grand jury, committing perjury by denying he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, and obstructing justice. Clinton declares himself "profoundly sorry" and willing to accept censure.

December 12, 1998

The committee approves a fourth article of impeachment on a party-line vote, accusing Clinton of abusing power in a direct parallel to Watergate-era language.

December 17, 1998

A last-minute stay of execution is offered to President Clinton as the Congress vote is postponed until the latest Gulf crisis is resolved and US military action against Iraq ends.

December 19, 1998

President Clinton is impeached as the Republican controlled House approves two of the four proposed articles of impeachment by narrow partisan majorities: 228-206 and 221-212. Mr Clinton is sent for trial in the Senate.

Mr Clinton resists calls to resign, pledging to fight to remain in the White House until "the last hour of the last day of my term".

Newly-appointed House of Representatives leader Bob Livingston announces he will step down because of Hustler magazine's revelations that he had had extramarital affairs. He also pledges to resign his legislative seat entirely in six months.

December 20, 1998

President Clinton's advisers begin secret consultations with Senate Republicans on possible compromise deals, in which the president would be censured and perhaps fined, thus avoiding a trial which some experts say could last for up to six months.

December 21, 1998

In the wake of his impeachment, President Clinton's approval level with the voters leaps 10 points to a personal all-time high of 73 per cent in a Gallup poll. Sixty-eight per cent believe the Senate should not convict Mr Clinton in the pending impeachment trial, while support for resignation falls to 30 per cent. Other polls confirm the trend.

December 29, 1998

With continuing uncertainty over the length and form of the Senate trial against President Clinton, Republican senators offer Mr Clinton the possibility of a fast-track hearing lasting only a few days if Mr Clinton accepts the evidence against him.

January 6, 1999

In an indication of how divided the Senate remains over the trial of President Clinton, Conservative Republican senators attempt to derail the bipartisan deal to bring a swift end to Mr Clinton's impeachment trial.

January 7, 1999

The Senate formally begins the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton on two charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

There remains complete disagreement on the procedure that will follow. A private senators meeting to debate the unresolved argument about whether witnesses - and if so who and how many - should be called is cancelled.

January 8, 1999

Republican and Democratic senators agree to postpone the issue of whether to call witnesses until later in the month, enabling the Senate trial of President Clinton to commence.

The opening arguments of the prosecution and defence will now take place before any decision about the witness question is taken.