A timeline of events in the British phone-hacking scandal since it emerged on July 4th that the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been hacked. The ensuing outrage prompted News Corp to close the 168-year-old Sunday tabloid News of the World and drop a €8.3 billion plan to take full control of BSkyB.
July 4 - A lawyer for Dowler's family says he learned from police her voicemail messages had been hacked, possibly by a News of the World investigator. The hacker had deleted messages on the phone, raising false hopes Dowler could still be alive. Police later say they also contacted the parents of two 10-year-old girls killed in the town of Soham in 2002.
July 5 - News International says new information has been given to police. The BBC says it related to emails appearing to show payments were made to police for information and were authorised by Andy Coulson, former editor of News of the World.
The list of those possibly targeted includes victims of the London suicide bombings of July 7, 2005, and the parents of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal in 2007.
July 6 - Rupert Murdoch appoints News Corp executive Joel Klein to oversee an investigation into the hacking allegations. Daily Telegraph says the News of the World hacked the phones of families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
July 7 - News Corp announces it will close down the News of the World. The July 10 edition is the last.
July 8 - Cameron announces two inquiries, one led by a judge on the hacking scandal, another looking at new regulations for the British press.
Coulson, who had served as Cameron's chief media adviser until resigning in January, is arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and suspicion of corruption. He is bailed until October. The News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman, is rearrested in connection with a police operation looking at alleged payments to police by journalists at the paper.
July 11 - Murdoch withdraws News Corp's offer to spin off BSkyB's Sky News channel, previously made to help win approval of its bid for the 61 per cent of BSkyB it does not own. This opens the way for the government to refer the BSkyB bid to the competition commission which will carry out an investigation.
July 12 - John Yates, assistant commissioner at London's Metropolitan Police, criticised for deciding in 2009 not to reopen the earlier inquiry, tells the Home Affairs Committee he probably did only the minimum work required before deciding.
July 13 - News Corp withdraws its bid for BSkyB. This pre-empts a planned vote in parliament.
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.
July 14 - The FBI says it will investigate allegations News Corp hacked into phone records of victims of Sept. 11 attacks.
Rupert Murdoch tells the Wall Street Journal, part of his empire, that News Corp handled the crisis "extremely well in every way possible", making only "minor mistakes".
July 15 - Brooks, former News of the World editor, resigns as chief executive of News International. Tom Mockridge, CEO of the company's Italian pay TV arm Sky Italia, will replace her.
Les Hinton, who told parliament in 2009 that any problem with hacking was limited to one case, resigns as chief executive of Murdoch's Dow Jones & Co, publisher of the WSJ.
July 16/17 - A direct apology from Rupert Murdoch is carried in all UK national newspapers under the headline "We are sorry".
July 17 - Detectives arrest Brooks on suspicion of intercepting communications and corruption. She is released on bail after about 12 hours in police custody.
Paul Stephenson, London's police commissioner, resigns after coming under fire over the appointment of Neil Wallis as public relations adviser to the force. Wallis, a former News of the World deputy editor, was arrested on July 14.
July 18 - Yates resigns over his role in the phone hacking probe.
Former News of the World journalist Sean Hoare is found dead at his home near London. Hoare told the New York Times that phone hacking at the tabloid was far more extensive than the paper had acknowledged at the time.
July 19 - Stephenson and Yates appear before parliament's home affairs committee.
Rupert Murdoch, questioned by parliament's Culture, Media and Sports committee, says he was "shocked, appalled and ashamed" when he heard about the Milly Dowler case. Asked if he considered himself personally responsible "for this fiasco", Murdoch replies: "No." James Murdoch also appears before the committee in three hours of testimony.
Brooks joins her former bosses in apologising.
July 20 - The home affairs committee releases report criticising News International's attempts to "deliberately thwart" the original hacking investigation.
Cameron, defending his integrity in an emergency debate in parliament, says he regrets the uproar caused by his hiring of Coulson. Should Coulson turn out to have lied, Cameron says he will apologise.
July 21 - Tom Crone and Colin Myler, ex-editor of the News of the World, say that James Murdoch's statement to the committee that he had been unaware in 2008 of an e-mail that suggested wrongdoing was more widespread, is mistaken. The two say they told him about the email. Murdoch stands by his testimony.
July 28 - Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in 2000, is told by police they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World's investigator Glenn Mulcaire. The latest evidence is believed to relate to a phone given to Sara Payne by Brooks as a gift to help her stay in touch with her supporters.
The BSkyB board unanimously backs James Murdoch to stay on as chairman.
July 29 - Mulcaire issues a statement through his lawyer saying he was not acting on his own initiative when he intercepted phone messages while in the pay of the newspaper.
August 2 - Police arrest a man on suspicion of corruption and conspiring to intercept communications. Sky News says it is Stuart Kuttner, a managing editor at the News of the World.
August 10 - Police say they have arrested Greg Miskiw, a senior editor at the News of the World at the time of the phone-hacking. He is the 12th figure to be arrested.
Murdoch endorses top lieutenant Chase Carey as the preferred choice to succeed him as News Corp CEO acknowledging for the first time publicly that his son James is not the preferred choice, at least in the near-term.
August 16 - Goodman says, in a letter written four years ago, that the practice of hacking at the News of the World was openly discussed until then editor Andy Coulson banned open talk about it.
The committee investigating the hacking scandal says it will probably recall James Murdoch to give further evidence after receiving the Goodman letter and statements from other parties which contradicted his previous testimony.