Timeline of WikiLeaks

This is a timeline of FIXME.

Big picture

Time period	Development summary
1990s	" Then, in the 1990’s, Assange and other black hat hackers gained control over MILNET for two years with the use of a back door. This gave them full access to the Pentagon Security Coordination Center. The IT rebels were also able to use their computers to interfere with the authorities who were investigating them. "
2010 – 2011	"2010: First massive information leak Things began with the first series of leaks released by Wikileaks back in 2010." "250,000 American diplomatic letters and 500,000 classified defence documents flooded the media and social networks from November 2010 to September 2011."
2016	"2016 presidential elections and more precisely the Democrats political campaign were also disrupted by an intervention made by Wikileaks."

Full timeline

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
1971			United States military analyst Daniel Ellsberg releases the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers. This study would be Julian Assange inspiration for Wikileaks.
1971	July 3		Julian Assange is born in the province of Queensland, Australia.
1991			Assange, now a noted computer hacker, pleads guilty to a host of cybercrime charges, but because of his youth he receives only minimal punishment.
c.1993			Assange cumulates 31 counts of computer hacking and related crimes, eventually pleading guilty and paying a minimal fine.
1999			Assange registers leaks.org.
2006			Assange starts using leaks.org actively.
2006	December		Sunshine Press launches the wikiLeaks.org website, as part of an international non-profit organization that obtains and publishes sensitive information.
2006	December		The first posting on leaks.org is a decision (never verified) by a Somali rebel leader to execute government officials.
2007			Assange announces the formal launch of Wikileaks.
2007			"Assange was the one to start a relationship with the Guardian. As early as 2007, recalls Editor Rusbridger, he received regular emails from WikiLeaks “editor-in-chief” Assange, sometimes with a good story to tell."
2007	August 31		"On August 31, 2007, the two organizations worked in tandem for the first time. WikiLeaks posted the full text of, and the Guardian ran a story on, a report by the private investigations firm Kroll about the alleged corruption of former Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi."
2007	November		Wikileaks posts the standard operating procedures for the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
2007	December		Wikileaks posts the United States Army manual for soldiers dealing with prisoners at Camp Delta, a permanent American detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay.
2008	March		"After WikiLeaks published internal material from the Scientology movement in 2008, that group threatened suit on the grounds of copyright infringement. " "WikiLeaks posts internal documents from the Church of Scientology."
2008	April	Recognition	Wikileaks is awarded The Economist's New Media Award at the Index on Censorship Awards.
2008	September		WikiLeaks posts emails from the Yahoo email account of US politician Sarah Palin.
2008	November		WikiLeaks posts a list of names and addresses of people it claims belong to British National Party, a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom.
2009	March 16		The Australian Communications and Media Authority adds WikiLeaks to their proposed list of sites that will be blocked for all Australians if the mandatory internet filtering scheme is implemented as planned. The blacklisting would be removed by 29 November 2010.
2009	June	Recognition	Wikileaks is awarded the Amnesty International's UK Media Award.
2009	November		" WikiLeaks posts what it claims are 500,000 messages sent during the September 11, 2001 attacks." " WikiLeaks published more than half a million pager messages sent within a 24-hour period around the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.The Revelations: The messages included exchanges from "Pentagon, FBI, FEMA and New York Police Department" officials. "We hope that its entrance into the historical record will lead to a nuanced understanding of how this event led to death, opportunism and war," WikiLeaks said of the release. "
2010	April 5		Wikileaks posts a classified military video showing a Boeing AH-64 Apache firing on and killing two journalists and a number of Iraqi civilians in 2007. The military claims that the helicopter crew believed the targets were armed insurgents, not civilians.
2010	May		"In the wake of those leaks, lawmakers in the United States pushed for the prosecution of Assange and any journalists or government insiders who had collaborated with WikiLeaks. The first formal charges were filed in May 2010, when Bradley Manning, a low-level U.S. Army intelligence analyst, was arrested in connection with the release of the 2007 helicopter video."
2010	May 19	Recognition	The New York Daily News lists WikiLeaks first among websites "that could totally change the news",
2010	May 26		" The US military detains Manning for allegedly leaking US combat video, including the US helicopter gunship attack posted on WikiLeaks, and classified State Department records. Manning was turned in by Adrian Lamo, a former hacker, who Manning confided in about leaking the classified records." ", but the Pentagon on May 26 had arrested US Army Private Bradley Manning, 22, on charges of illegally downloading hundreds of thousands of classified US documents, including—reports said at the time—a trove of State Department cables on Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, Manning may have given the documents to WikiLeaks"
2010	July 6		"The military announces it has charged Manning with violating army regulations by transferring classified information to a personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system and of violating federal laws of governing the handling of classified information."
2010	July 17	Reception	American independent journalist Jacob Appelbaum speaks on behalf of WikiLeaks at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York City, replacing Assange because of the presence of federal agents at the conference. He announces that the WikiLeaks submission system is again operating, after it has been suspended temporarily.
2010	July 25		WikiLeaks posts more than 90,000 classified documents relating to the War in Afghanistan. This would be called the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. The documents are divided into more than 100 categories and touch on everything from the hunt for Osama bin Laden to Afghan civilian deaths resulting from US military actions."
2010	August		WikiLeaks decides to move their headquarters to Uppsala and begins to mainly be hosted by the Swedish internet service provider Bahnhof, where there are now a couple WikiLeaks servers in the Pionen facility.
2010	August 18		The Thai Government blocks access to WikiLeaks website in its country.
2010	October 22		WikiLeaks publishes nearly 400,000 classified military documents from the Iraq War, providing new figures of deceased Iraqi civilians, as well as the role that Iran has played in supporting Iraqi militants and many accounts of abuse by Iraq's army and police. "So, WikiLeaks published the Iraq War Logs on October 22nd of 2010. In so doing, it became the biggest leak in the military history of America up to that point, far surpassing the Afghan War Diary of July 25th from that same year."
2010	October 23	Recognition	WikiLeaks and Assange are awarded the 2010 Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award for releasing secret U.S. military reports on the Iraq and Afghan wars.
2010	November 28		"WikiLeaks begins publishing approximately 250,000 leaked State Department cables dating back to 1966. The site says the documents will be released "in stages over the next few months."
2010	November 28		"The WikiLeaks website suffers an attack designed to make it unavailable to users. A Twitter user called Jester claims responsibility for the attack."
2010	November 29		Thailand Blocks Access To WikiLeaks Website.
2010	November 29	Reception	Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez states his support for WikiLeaks following the release of US diplomatic cables in November 2010 showing the United States attempts to rally support from regional governments to isolate Venezuela.
2010	November		"In November 2010 WikiLeaks released selections from a trove of some 250,000 classified diplomatic cables between the U.S. State Department and its embassies and consulates around the world. Those documents dated mostly from 2007 to 2010 but included some dating back as far as 1966. Among the wide-ranging topics covered in those secret documents were behind-the-scenes U.S. efforts to politically and economically isolate Iran, primarily in response to fears of Iran’s development of nuclear weapons."
2010	December 1		Amazon.com removes WikiLeaks from its servers after political pressure.
2010	December 2	Reception	Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard makes a statement that she 'absolutely condemns' WikiLeaks' actions and that the release of information on the site is 'grossly irresponsible' and 'illegal.'
2010	December 3		The Obama administration bans hundreds of thousands of federal employees from calling up the WikiLeaks site on government computers because the leaked material is still formally regarded as classified.
2010	December 9	Reception	United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression Frank LaRue supports the idea that Julian Assange is a "martyr for free speech." LaRue goes on to say Assange or other WikiLeaks staff should not face legal accountability for any information they disseminated, noting that, "if there is a responsibility by leaking information it is of, exclusively of the person that made the leak and not of the media that publish it. And this is the way that transparency works and that corruption has been confronted in many cases."
2010	December 15	Reception	Philipino President Benigno Aquino III condemns WikiLeaks and leaks documents related to the country, saying that it can lead to massive cases of miscommunication.
2010	December		wikileaks.org faces a number of setbacks, being forced to go off-line once again when the site’s domain name provider terminates its account in the wake of a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks. However, as with previous service interruptions, WikiLeaks remains available on mirror sites or by directly linking to its IP address.
2010	December		"Assange was arrested by British police on an outstanding Swedish warrant for alleged sex crimes."
2010	December		"That same week the organization’s fund-raising efforts took an enormous hit when PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard suspended online payment processing for donations to WikiLeaks, a move that Assange characterized as a “financial blockade.”"
2010	December	Recognition	"Assange earned the Time magazine "Person of the Year" title in 2010"
2011	January	Reception	Libyan politician Muammar Gaddafi blames WikiLeaks for the Tunisian revolution stating "[Do not be fooled by] WikiLeaks which publishes information written by lying ambassadors in order to create chaos."
2011	April		"WikiLeaks began publishing another round of secret files from the Guantánamo Bay facility in April 2011. The documents contained detailed information about the majority of prisoners detained at Guantánamo from 2002 to 2008, including photographs, health records, and assessments of the potential threat posed by each prisoner. The files also indicated that dozens of detainees had passed through radicalized British mosques prior to their departure for Afghanistan and, ultimately, their capture by U.S. forces. "
2011	April 24		"Nearly 800 classified US military documents obtained by WikiLeaks reveal details about the alleged terrorist activities of al Qaeda operatives captured and housed in Guantanamo Bay."
2011	September 2		"- WikiLeaks releases its archive of more than 250,000 unredacted US diplomatic cables."
2011	October		", in October 2011 Assange announced that the organization would stop publishing and focus its efforts on fund-raising"
2011	October 24		"WikiLeaks announces that it is temporarily halting publication to "aggressively fundraise." Assange states that a financial blockade by Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union has cut off 95% of WikiLeaks' revenue."
2011	December 16		"Manning's Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing that will determine whether enough evidence exists to merit a court-martial, begins."
2012	February 23		" Manning is formally charged with aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, transmitting national defense information and theft of public property or records."
2012	February 26		"- WikiLeaks begins releasing what it says are five million emails from the private intelligence company, Stratfor, starting with a company "glossary" that features unflattering descriptions of US government agencies. The authenticity of the documents can't be independently confirmed."
2012	July 5		WikiLeaks begins publishing more than 2.4 million emails from Syrian politicians, government ministries and companies.
2012	April		"During this time Assange remained under house arrest pending the resolution of his extradition hearing, and he began recording The World Tomorrow (later called The Julian Assange Show), an interview program that debuted on the state-run Russian satellite network RT in April 2012."
2012	June		" With his extradition appeal having been denied and the Swedish arrest warrant pending, in June 2012 Assange applied for asylum in Ecuador and sought refuge in that country’s embassy in London. " "According to a New York Times article, Assange came to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in June 2012, seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden. "
2013	February 28		" Manning pleads guilty to some of the 22 charges against him, but not the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, which carries a life sentence."
2013	July		". Military prosecutors pursued additional charges against Manning, and in July 2013 he was found guilty of numerous counts of espionage and theft. "
2013	July		"In July 2013 Assange launched the WikiLeaks Party and announced his candidacy for a seat in the Australian Senate. "
2013	June 3		" Manning's court-martial begins."
2013	August		"Although he was acquitted of aiding the enemy, the most serious of the charges against him, in August 2013 he was sentenced to 35 years in prison." "A military judge sentences Manning to 35 years in prison."
2014	April		"In November 2014 Sony Pictures Entertainment was the target of a massive data breach, and a group calling itself the Guardians of Peace soon began releasing sensitive company information in small batches. The hack was eventually attributed to North Korea. The following April, WikiLeaks published more than 200,000 of the stolen documents in a searchable database, a move that was immediately criticized by Sony."
2016	March		"In March 2016 WikiLeaks unveiled a searchable archive of some 30,000 e-mail messages and attachments retrieved from a private server maintained by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as U.S. secretary of state (2009–13). The collection was made public by the State Department through the Freedom of Information Act."
2016	July 20		The Turkish government blocks access to Wikileaks after it releases nearly 300,000 emails involving the ruling Justice and Development Party. The email releases are in response to the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt.
2016	July 22		"WikiLeaks releases nearly 20,000 emails from Democratic National Committee staffers. The emails appear to show the committee favoring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the US presidential primary."
2016	July		"In July 2016, just days before the Democratic Party officially nominated Clinton as its candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, WikiLeaks published more than 60,000 Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mail messages and documents. "
2016	October 7		"On October 7, 2016, a damaging video recording surfaced in which Trump boasted that his celebrity allowed him to grope women with impunity. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks published a trove of e-mail messages from the personal account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. "
2017	January 3		"During an interview on the Fox News Network, Assange says that Russia did not give WikiLeaks hacked emails."
2017	January 12		"WikiLeaks tweets that Assange will agree to be extradited to the United States if Obama grants clemency to Manning."
2017	January 17		" Obama commutes Manning's sentence, setting the stage for her to be released on May 17."
2017	March 7		" WikiLeaks publishes what they say are thousands of internal CIA documents, including alleged discussions of a covert hacking program and the development of spy software targeting cellphones, smart TVs and computer systems in cars. In a statement, Assange says that the website published the documents as a warning about the risk of the proliferation of "cyber weapons." The documents are not independently authenticated."
2017	May 3		" During a Senate hearing, FBI Director James Comey refers to WikiLeaks as "intelligence porn," declaring that the site's disclosures are intended to damage the United States rather than educate the public."
2017	May 17		"Manning is released from prison."
2017	October		"CNN reports that in 2016 a Cambridge Analytica executive reached out to WikiLeaks requesting access to Clinton emails. Assange confirmed the exchange in a tweet, saying "I can confirm an approach by Cambridge Analytica [prior to November last year] and can confirm that it was rejected by WikiLeaks.""
2019	April		"After his asylum was rescinded in April 2019, Assange was indicted in the U.S. for violating the Espionage Act."

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