Aung San Suu Kyi's life has been marked by family tragedy, world travel and a political mission that prompted her to choose Myanmar's democracy struggle over her children, whom she left behind in England.
Here are the key events in Suu Kyi's life that aides and biographers say shaped the stoic, pragmatic, eloquent woman whose sacrifices and struggles have earned her a Nobel prize and international acclaim.
— FAMILY LIFE
— June 19, 1945: Born in Yangon, then called Rangoon. She is the third child and only daughter of national independence hero Gen. Aung San and Daw Khin Kyi, also a prominent public figure.
— July 1947: Aung San and six members of his interim government are assassinated by rivals. Suu Kyi is 2.
— 1952: Suu Kyi's favorite brother, Aung San Lin, drowns in a pond inside the family's compound.
— 1960: After finishing high school, Suu Kyi leaves for further study in New Delhi, where her mother is Burma's ambassador.
— 1964-1967. Suu Kyi studies philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University's St. Hugh's College, where she meets future husband and Himalayan scholar Michael Aris.
— 1969-1971: Suu Kyi moves to New York for postgraduate studies at New York University but postpones academic career when a family friend helps get her a job at the United Nations.
— 1970: Aris visits Suu Kyi in New York, after three years of exchanging letters, and they get engaged.
— 1972: Suu Kyi and Michael Aris are married in London and move to Bhutan, where Aris is doing academic research.
— April 12, 1973: Son Alexander born in London. Family soon moves to Nepal for a year for Aris' work.
— Sept. 24, 1977: Second son Kim is born. The family keeps Oxford as a base but relocates regularly for work and academic research, spending time in Bhutan, Japan, India and back to England.
— POLITICAL LIFE
— April 1988: Suu Kyi returns home to attend to her ailing mother just as pro-democracy protests erupt against the military junta. Her mother dies later that year.
— September 1988: Suu Kyi helps found opposition party, the National League for Democracy.
— July 1989: Suu Kyi, an increasingly outspoken critic of the junta, is put under house arrest, which continues on-and-off for 15 of the next 22 years. The junta says she can leave the country anytime but she refuses, fearing she won't be allowed to return, and chooses to live apart from her husband and sons. Aris is allowed to visit her five times, the last visit during Christmas 1995.
— October 1991: Suu Kyi is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful struggle against the regime. Son Alexander, then 18, gives Oslo acceptance speech on her behalf.
— March 1999: Aris dies of cancer in England at age 53. The junta repeatedly denied him visas to see his wife during the three years leading up to his death.
—May 30, 2003: Suu Kyi's motorcade comes under attack by pro-government thugs in northern Myanmar, killing a number of her supporters and bringing to an end a brief calming in tensions between her party and the junta. Suu Kyi spends four months in Yangon's Insein Prison before being returned to house arrest.
— Nov. 7, 2010: Myanmar's first elections in 20 years. Pro-junta party wins landslide victory in polls critics say were rigged and rampant with fraud.
— Nov. 13, 2010: The last of various periods in Suu Kyi's detention expires, and she is freed.
— Nov. 23, 2010: Suu Kyi is reunited with son Kim Aris, now 33, for first time in 10 years. He was repeatedly denied visas since his last visit in December 2000.
— April 1, 2012: Suu Kyi wins seat in Parliament, marking her first elected office after two decades as a symbolic opposition leader.
— May 29-June 3, 2012. Suu Kyi makes her first trip abroad since she returned to Myanmar from London in April 1988 to nurse her dying mother. She visits neighboring Thailand, Myanmar's second largest trade partner after China.
— June 13-29, 2012: Suu Kyi takes first trip to Europe in 24 years, with stops in Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, England and France.
— Sept. 17, 2012: Suu Kyi begins landmark visit to the U.S., taking in Washington D.C., and Fort Wayne, Ind., where thousands of Burmese refugees have settled since the '88 uprising.