July 4, 2011 - A lawyer for the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler says police have told him that her voicemail messages had been hacked, possibly by a News of the World investigator.

July 7 - News Corp announces it will close the News of the World. The July 10 edition is to be the last.

July 8 - Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor who also served as Prime Minister David Cameron's chief media adviser until resigning in January 2011, is arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications. The News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman, is re-arrested.

July 11 - Murdoch withdraws News Corp's offer to spin off BSkyB's Sky News channel, made to help win approval for News Corp's bid for 61 percent of BSkyB it does not own.

July 13 - News Corp withdraws its bid for BSkyB. This pre-empts a planned vote in parliament.

-- Tom Crone, legal manager at News International, resigns.

July 15 - Rebekah Brooks, a former News of the World editor, resigns as chief executive of News International.

-- Les Hinton, who as executive chairman of News International told parliament in 2009 that any problem with hacking was limited to one case, resigns as chief executive of Murdoch's Dow Jones & Co, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

July 16/17 - A direct apology from Rupert Murdoch is carried in British national newspapers with the headline "We are sorry."

July 17 - Detectives arrest Brooks.

-- Paul Stephenson, London's police commissioner, resigns after coming under fire over the appointment of former News of the World deputy editor, Neil Wallis, as a public relations adviser to the force.

July 19 - Rupert Murdoch, questioned by parliament's Culture, Media and Sports committee, says he was "shocked, appalled and ashamed" when he heard about the Dowler case. Murdoch denies he considers himself personally responsible. James Murdoch also appears before the committee. Brooks also joins her former bosses in apologizing.

July 20 - Parliament's home affairs committee releases report criticizing News International's attempts to "deliberately thwart" the original hacking investigation.

July 21 - Crone and Colin Myler, ex-editor of the News of the World, say James Murdoch's statement to the committee -- that he had been unaware in 2008 of an e-mail that suggested wrongdoing was more widespread -- was mistaken.

Oct 21 - Rupert Murdoch deflects attempts by investors to remove him as chairman of News Corp at the company's annual meeting. He also retains his sons James and Lachlan as directors.

November 7 - News International admits its staff ordered surveillance to be carried out on two lawyers representing victims suing the media group over the scandal.

November 10 - James Murdoch, in a second appearance before the parliamentary committee, denies he misled parliament about the extent of his knowledge of hacking at News of the World. He blames other senior executives for not telling him more about potential evidence of widespread hacking.

-- Murdoch reiterates that Myler and Crone had not shown him the transcripts, contained in an email dubbed the "For Neville" email, and says Crone misled parliament.

November 14 - The public inquiry, chaired by Lord Leveson and set up by Cameron, begins its investigations into newspaper practices.

November 29 - Paul McMullan, a reporter at the News of the World, tells the public inquiry that former editors of the newspaper, including Andy Coulson, were aware of phone-hacking at the tabloid.

December 7 - Police arrest Glen Mulcaire as part of their Operation Weeting investigation into phone hacking. Mulcaire had already been jailed in 2007 for illegally accessing the voicemails of royal aides and five other figures along with Clive Goodman.

December 10 - More than 800 people have had their telephones illegally hacked by the defunct News of the World, British police investigating the alleged practice say.

December 21 - Coulson loses a case to force News Group Newspapers, the defunct News of the World's publisher, to pay his legal fees relating to phone-hacking charges.

-- Earlier News Group lost a similar case against Mulcaire, and will have to resume paying his fees.

December 29 - News International increases the legal fund it will use to settle civil litigation cases brought by victims of phone hacking to 100 million pounds, the Independent newspaper reports.

January 19, 2012 - News Group Newspapers has settled with a host of cases after acknowledging to victims that executives covered up the scale of illegal activity by destroying evidence and lying to investigators, court proceedings show.

• A Permanent Economic Emergency