Panamas history , the short version

2500 BC – Year 1700

The earliest traces of Central Panama are pottery making people dating back to 2500-1700 BC.  The indigenous People of panama gathered edible plants, fruits, cacao, root crops and grew corn.
In 1501 Rodrigo de Batisdas was the first European to explore Panama (named the Spanish Colonial). One year later Christopher Columbus sailed south. 1590  Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa were granted to colonize Panama.
In September 1510 the first permanent European settlement on American mainland was founded.
August 15, 1519 Pedrarias moved the capital of Castilla del Oro with all its organizational institutions to the Pacific coast and founded Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Panamá.In 1526 Pedrarias was superseded as Governor of Panama by Pedro de los Ríos.  Panama was part of the Spanish Empire for over 300 years (1513-1821).
In 1538 the “Real Audiencia de Panama” was established, stretching from Nicaragua to Cape horn.      At this time Panama was colonized and the indigenous peoples who survived many diseases, massacres and enslavement of the conquest ultimately fled into the forest and nearby islands.
1744 Bishop Francisco Javier de Luna Victoria y Castro established the College of San Ignacio de Loyola and on June 3, 1749 founded La Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Javier.
In 1713, the viceroyalty of New Granada (northern South America) was created as a response  to other Europeans trying to take Spanish territory in the Caribbean region.

1800 - 1900

1819, the liberation of New Granada  finally gained its freedom, Panama was therefore  freed and independent as a part of that old colonial Spanish framework.
November 10, 1821, the “Grito de La Villa de Los Santos” occurred. It was a unilateral decision by the residents of Azuero (without backing from Panama City) to declare their separation from the Spanish Empire.  Grito was an event that shook the isthmus  core and was an incredibly brave move.
November 28, 1821 Panama severed its ties with the Spanish Empire and its decision to join New Granada and Venezuela in Bolivar's recently founded Republic of Colombia.
In 1821 the Isthmus joined Venezuela, New Granada (present day Colombia)
September 1830, General José Domingo Espinar, the military commander,  Panama separated from the Republic of Colombia and requested that general Simón Bolívar take command of the Isthmus Department.  Bolívar rejected Espinar's actions.
Bolívar's vision for territorial unity disintegrated when General Juan Eligio Alzuru undertook a military coup against Espinar's authority. By early 1831, with order restored, Panama reincorporated itself to what was left of the republic -forming a territory now slightly larger than present day Panama and Colombia combined- which by then had adopted the name of Republic of New Granada. The alliance of the two nations would last seventy years and prove precarious.
July 1831, as the new countries of Venezuela and Ecuador were being established, the isthmus would again reiterate its independence, now under the same General.
November 1840, during a civil war that started as a religious conflict Panama declared its independence .
“Free State of the Isthmus”, The new state established external political and economic ties and by March 1841, drawn up a constitution which included the possibility for Panama to rejoin New Granada, but only as a federal district.
1840s, North America  and French became excited about constructing railroads and/or canals throughout Central America to quicken trans-oceanic travel.
New Granada’s control over the isthmus was starting to become a problem. In 1846, the United States and New Granada signed the “Bidlack Mallarino Treaty”, granting the U.S. rights to build railroads through Panama, and  the power to militarily intervene against a revolt to guarantee New Granadine control of Panama world's first transcontinental railroad.
The Panama Railway, was completed in 1855.

1900-2000

1850 until 1903, the United States used troops to suppress separatist uprisings and quell social disturbances on many occasions.
1852 the isthmus would adopt trial by jury in criminal cases and declare and enforce an end to slavery.
1855, the first Transcontinental railway of the New World, the Panama Railway, was built across the isthmus from Colón to Panama City.
Panamanian history looked now at the possibility of a canal to replace the difficult overland route.
1880 to 1889, the French “Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique” under the direction of Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had successfully built the Suez Canal, attempted to construct a sea-level canal in the same general area as the present Panama Canal. The company faced insurmountable health problems such as yellow fever and malaria as well as engineering challenges caused by frequent landslides, slippage of equipment and mud. In the end the company failed in a spectacular collapse which caused the downfall and incarceration of many of its financial backers in France.
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt convinced U.S. Congress to take on the abandoned works in 1902, while Colombia was in the midst of the Thousand Days War.
Mid 1903, the Colombian government in Bogotá had balked at the prospect of a U.S. controlled canal under the terms that the Roosevelt's administration was offering. The U.S. was unwilling to alter its terms and quickly changed tactics.
November 3, 1903, after 57 years of policing Bogotá's interests, the United States had sided with Panama, after protecting its interest from at least one attack led by Colombian general Philippe Bonau Varilla.
November 18, 1903  The treaty allowed for the construction of a canal and U.S. sovereignty over a strip of land 10x50 miles.
The Panama Canal was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914.
Dr.William Gorgas deploying the techniques pioneered by Cuban physician Carlos Finley made it possible to rid the area of yellow fever between 1902 and 1905. Gorgas' work in the sanitation of the Canal Zone and the cities of Panama and Colon eventually made him a sought after authority internationally.
1903 until 1968, Panama was a republic dominated by a commercially-oriented oligarchy. During the 1950s, the Panamanian military began to challenge the oligarchy's political hegemony.
September 7, 1977, the Torrijos-Carter Treaties were signed by the Panamanian head of state as well as U.S. President Jimmy Carter, for the complete transfer of the Canal and the fourteen US army bases from the US to Panama by 1999 apart from granting the US a perpetual right of military intervention. Certain portions of the Zone and increasing responsibility over the Canal were turned over in the intervening years.
Torrijos died in a mysterious plane crash on August 1, 1981.
Relations between the United States and the Panama regime worsened in the 1980s.
The United States froze economic and military assistance to Panama in the summer of 1987 in response to the domestic political crisis and an attack on the U.S. embassy. General Noriega's February 1988 indictment in U.S. courts on drug-trafficking charges sharpened tensions. In April 1988, President Reagan invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, freezing Panamanian Government assets in U.S. banks, withholding fees for using the canal, and prohibiting payments by American agencies, firms, and individuals to the Noriega regime. The country went into turmoil.
December 20, 1989 the United States troops commenced an invasion of Panama goals were    achieved quickly.  The US was obligated to hand control of the Panama Canal to Panama on January 1 due to a treaty signed decades before.
General Manuel Noriega is now serving a 40-year sentence for drug trafficking.
President George H. W. Bush announced a billion dollars in aid to Panama.
December 20, 1989 Guillermo Endara, was sworn in as president of Panama. Mr Endara Governed 1989-1994 (later died in September 2009).  
Pérez Balladares ran as the candidate for a three-party coalition dominated by the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) May 2, 1999, Mireya Moscoso, the widow of former President Arnulfo Arias Madrid, defeated PRD candidate Martín Torrijos, son of the late dictator.

2000 -

In 2004, Martín Torrijos again ran for president but this time won handily.
1 July 2009 until present time, Panama is governed by Mr Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal a successful business man and chairman of the board of Panama’s Super 99 supermarket chain. He is currently chairman in two other companies and a board member of at least eight other companies.

3rd of September 2007 the Panama Canal expansion project started, making Panama up to speed in current shipping standards. The widening of the canal will employ more than 3,000 people and last until 2014. A fun fact is that this time “French” was part of the bidding process, but this time, once again bailed on completing the job and left the bidding process. The winner of the bidding was ”The MECO Consortium” formed by companies from Costa Rica, Spain and Mexico. Their winning bid was $267.800.000.