1972: Jean McConville is dragged from her home in Divis flats in west Belfast by an IRA gang of around 12 men and women. It is the last time her children see her alive. She is shot in the back of the head and secretly buried, so becoming one of the "Disappeared" victims of the Troubles. No one has been convicted of her murder in the 43 years since.
1999: One year after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA finally admits responsibility for killing the 37-year-old widow, claiming she was an informer for the British Army. The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains is set up by the Irish and British governments. The IRA passes on information on Mrs McConville's possible whereabouts on a stretch of coastline in Co Louth. However, subsequent searches fail to find her body.
2001: Academics, historians and journalists embark on a five-year project to collate an oral history of the Troubles. The Boston College initiative involves interviewing former paramilitaries about their roles in the conflict on the understanding their accounts would not be made public until they die.
2003: The body of Mrs McConville is finally found by a dog walker on Shelling Hill beach in Co Louth after a heavy storm exposes her remains.
2006: An investigation by Northern Ireland's then police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan rejects the IRA claim that Mrs McConville was an informer.
2008: Brendan Hughes, a former IRA commander in Belfast, who was one of the figures interviewed for the Boston College project, dies.
2010: A book containing excerpts from Hughes's interviews is published. Among claims outlined in Voices from the Grave is the allegation that Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams ordered the murder of Mrs McConville. Mr Adams emphatically rejects the accusation. In the same year Dolours Price, who was convicted of the IRA's bombing of the Old Bailey in 1973, makes similar allegations about Mr Adams. Price indicates that she has also spoken to researchers at Boston College. Mr Adams again denies the claims and highlights both Price and Hughes's criticism of his and Sinn Féin's involvement in the peace process.
2011: The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) launches a legal bid in the US to try to obtain tapes within the Boston College archive that relate to the murder of Mrs McConville.
2013: Dolours Price dies in her Dublin home of a suspected overdose of prescription drugs. Later in the year the PSNI wins it lengthy court battle with Boston College and a number of the tapes are handed over.
2014: In March, veteran republican Ivor Bell, then 77, from Ramoan Gardens in west Belfast, is arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the murder of Mrs McConville and IRA membership.
Mr Adams, in response to the renewed focus on the McConville case in the wake of Bell's charges, issues a statement indicating he is willing to speak to the officers investigating the case. He again rejects any suggestion he had anything to do with the crime. At different junctures in March and April, four women are arrested and questioned about the murder. All are subsequently released pending police reports to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS). In April, Mr Adams, after back and forth contacts between his lawyer and detectives, presents himself at Antrim police station for interview. 
He is immediately arrested and taken into custody - a move that Sinn Féin brands unnecessary and an example of "political policing". After four days of questioning Mr Adams is released pending a report to prosecutors.
In May, a 56-year-old man is arrested in connection with the murder. He is released pending a report to prosecutors.
In November, Sinn Féin's high profile northern chairman Bobby Storey is arrested in connection with the overall investigation into the murder. It is understood he is questioned about an IRA internal investigation carried out decades after the killing. Mr Storey is released pending a report being sent to prosecutors.
A year of intense activity by PSNI detectives working on the case brings 11 arrests, with one man charged and seven reports, including one on Mr Adams, having being sent to prosecutors for assessment.
2015: In June, a PPS lawyer tells Belfast Magistrates Court that its prosecution of Mr Bell will proceed - ending months of uncertainty about the case.
29 September, PPS Deputy Director Pamela Atchison announces the prosecutorial decisions on the files of Mr Adams, Mr Storey and the five others.
