News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch and his son James face questions from British parliament in a phone-hacking scandal.
Here are the main events in the scandal that lead to Rupert Murdoch withdrawing his bid for British broadcaster BSkyB and closing the 168-year-old News of the World tabloid.
2000 - Rebekah Wade is appointed editor of Britain's best-selling Sunday tabloid News of the World.
2002 - Teenager Milly Dowler disappears in Walton on Thames, Surrey in March. Her remains are found in September.
2003 - Wade becomes editor of daily tabloid The Sun, sister paper to the News of the World. She tells a parliamentary committee her newspaper has paid police for information although News International later says this is not company practice.
November 2005 - News of the World publishes story on Prince William's knee injury. This prompts complaints by royal staff members about voicemail messages being intercepted. The complaints spark a police inquiry.
January 2007 - The News of the World's royal affairs editor Clive Goodman is jailed for four months.
Goodman listened to voicemail messages left for the press secretary of Prince Charles and also for two officials who worked for his sons, princes William and Harry.
His accomplice, private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, is given a six-month prison term. Goodman and Mulcaire admitted in November 2006 to plotting to unlawfully intercept communications while Mulcaire also pleaded guilty to five other charges of unlawfully intercepting voicemail messages.
After the two were sentenced, News of the World editor Andy Coulson resigns, saying he took ‘ultimate responsibility’.
May 2007 - Andy Coulson becomes the Conservative Party's director of communications under leader David Cameron.
June 2009 - Rebekah Wade becomes CEO of News International. Wade marries Charlie Brooks and becomes Rebekah Brooks.
July 2009 - The Guardian newspaper says News of the World reporters, with the knowledge of senior staff, had illegally accessed messages from the mobile phones of celebrities and politicians while Coulson was editor.
Actors Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, Australian model Elle Macpherson and former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott were among those targeted, the Guardian says.
September 2009 - Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones and previously the executive chairman of Murdoch's newspaper arm in Britain, tells a committee of legislators any problems with phone hacking was limited to one, already well-publicised case, reiterating what he told the committee in 2007. He said they had carried out a wide review and found no new evidence.
February 2010 - The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sports Committee says in a report it is ‘inconceivable’ that managers at the News of the World did not know about the practice, which the legislators said was more widespread than the Sunday newspaper had previously admitted.
September 2010 - MPs ask parliament's standards watchdog to begin a new investigation into the phone hacking allegations surrounding the News of the World and its former editor Andy Coulson, by then Prime Minister David Cameron's media chief.
The cross-party Committee on Standards and Privileges will also look at whether the tabloid's journalists tried to access MPs' private messages on their mobile phones.
Pressure for a new investigation grows after the New York Times had suggested News of the World reporters ‘routinely’ sought to hack phones, often with the help of private investigators.
January 2011 - British police open a new investigation into allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World. Police had said in July 2009 there was no need for a probe into the hacking claims.
The News of the World announces it has sacked senior editor Ian Edmondson after an internal inquiry.
Andy Coulson resigns as Cameron's communications chief amid the allegations of phone hacking.
April 2011 - News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, and Edmondson are arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept mobile phone messages. They are released on bail. The News of the World admits its role in the phone hacking.
June 2011 - Levi Bellfield is found guilty of murdering schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
July 2011 - A lawyer for Milly Dowler's family, says he learned from police that the schoolgirl's voicemail messages had been hacked while police were searching for her.
5 July 2011 - News International says that new information has been given to police. The BBC says the material related to emails appearing to show payments were made to police for information and were authorised by Coulson.
Relatives of victims from London's 7/7 bombings in 2005 say police have told them their voicemail messages may have been intercepted by the Sunday paper.
6 July 2011 - Cameron says he is ‘revolted’ by allegations that investigators from the paper eavesdropped on the voicemail of victims of crimes and says he will order an inquiry.
Murdoch appoints News Corp executive Joel Klein to oversee an investigation into the hacking allegations.
New claims reported by Britain's Daily Telegraph say that the Sunday tabloid hacked into the phones of relatives of British soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
7 July 2011 - Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation announces it will close down the News of the World. The 10 July edition will be the last according to a statement from Murdoch's son James, who heads the British newspaper arm of News Corp.
8 July 2011 - David Cameron promises sweeping new regulatory rules for the British press, and called for a public inquiry into what went wrong over a decade at the News of the World.
He took full responsibility for employing Coulson, defending his decision to give him a ‘second chance’.
Coulson is arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and suspicion of corruption.
The News of the World's former royal editor, Goodman, is arrested in connection with a police operation looking at alleged payments to police by journalists at the paper.
Police search the offices of the Daily Star Sunday tabloid where Goodman freelanced. The Star is owned by businessman Richard Desmond and is not connected to News Corp.
10 July 2011 - Rupert Murdoch flies into London to handle the crisis.
11 July 2011 - Murdoch withdraws News Corp's offer to spin off BSkyB's Sky News channel.
This opens the way for the government to refer News Corp's bid for the 61% of BSkyB it does not already own to the competition regulator, Ofcom, who will carry out a lengthy probe.
Cameron says that News Corp needed to focus on ‘clearing up this mess’ before thinking about the next corporate move.
Allegations surface on the same day that journalists at several News Corp papers have targeted former prime minister Gordon Brown.
Police confirm to Brown that his name was on a list of targets compiled by Mulcaire.
12 July 2011 - John Yates, Assistant Commissioner at London's Metropolitan Police, who was criticised for deciding in 2009 not to reopen the earlier inquiry, is to appear before parliament's Home Affairs Committee.
In the United States John Rockefeller, chairman of Senate's commerce committee, calls for an investigation to determine if News Corp had broken any US laws.
13 July 2011 - News Corp withdraws its bid for the 61% of BSkyB it does not own, in the face of cross-party hostility in parliament.
The move pre-empts a planned vote in parliament that had all-party support for the bid to be dropped.
The company statement leaves the door open to a new offer to buy out the other shareholders at some point.
Tom Crone, legal manager at News International, leaves the company, a source familiar with the situation says.
Cameron gives details of a formal public inquiry into the affair, to be chaired by senior judge, Brian Leveson.
News Corp's Australian arm launches investigation to see if any wrongdoing at its editorial operations.
14 July 2011 - Rupert Murdoch eventually accepts request by parliament to answer questions on 19 July over the alleged crimes at the News of the World. James Murdoch also says he will appear. Rebekah Brooks agrees to appear, but says the police inquiry may restrict what she can say.
Police arrest a ninth suspect who media name as Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World.
The FBI says it will investigate allegations that News Corp hacked into phone records of victims of 11 Sept attacks.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, part of his empire, Rupert Murdoch says News Corp handled the crisis ‘extremely well in every way possible’ making just ‘minor mistakes’. Says his son James acted ‘as fast as he could, the moment he could’.
15 July 2011 - Brooks resigns as chief executive of News Corp's British newspaper unit. Tom Mockridge, CEO of the company's Italian pay TV arm Sky Italia, will replace Brooks.
16/17 July 2011 - A direct apology from Rupert Murdoch is carried in all UK national newspapers under the headline ‘We are sorry’.
17 July 2011 - Brooks is arrested as part of an investigation into allegations of phone hacking and bribing police, sources familiar with the situation say.
Paul Stephenson, London's police commissioner, resigns after coming under fire over the appointment of Neil Wallis as public relations adviser to the force.
18 July 2011 - Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates resigned after criticism of his handling of a review of the initial investigation into phone hacking, and failure to recognise the potential threat to the force's reputation.
Mr Yates decided in 2009 not to re-open investigations into the alleged hacking, saying there was reason to do so.
A former News of the World reporter who was the first to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking has been found dead.
Sean Hoare, who made claims in a New York Times article about the Prime Minister's former communications chief, was discovered at his home in Watford, Hertfordshire, after concerns were raised about his whereabouts.
