- Vinca culture (5700 - 4500 BC)
- Varna culture (4400 - 4100 BC)
- Ezero culture (3300 - 2700 BC)
- Thracian tribes arrive (2nd millennium BC)
- Achaemenid Empire (550 - 330 BC)
- Odrysian kingdom (480 - 30 BC)
- Celts arrive (3rd century BC)
- Roman Empire annexes Bulgaria (46 BC)
- Old Great Bulgaria (632 - 668 AD)
- Bulgar tribes (7th century AD)
- Khazar Khaganate invasion (7th century AD)
- Byzantine-Bulgarian wars (680 - 1355 AD)
- First Bulgarian Empire (681 - 1018 AD)
- Byzantine Bulgaria (1018-1185)
- Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396)
- Bulgarian-Ottoman Wars (1345-1393)
- Ottoman Bulgaria (1396-1878)
- Battle of Varna (1444)
- April Uprising (1876)
- Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878)
- Ottoman principality of Bulgaria (1878-1908)
- Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885)
- Bulgaria gains independence from the Ottoman Empire (1908)
- Bulgaria kingdom (1908-1946)
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913)
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Military coup d'état (1923)
- World War II (1939-1945)
- People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946-1990)
- Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1990)
- Republic of Bulgaria (1990 - now)
- Bulgaria joins the European Union (2007)
(This post includes any nation or civilization that occupied at least a portion of Bulgaria at some point. Unless specified otherwise, the dates correspond to when a nation or civilization existed, but do not necessarily correspond to occupation of Bulgaria.)
