Following are key dates in the life of Israel's former president, prime minister and Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday at the age of 93.

- August 2 1923: Born Shimon Persky at Vishneva in what was then Poland and is now Belarus, he later took the Hebrew name Peres, meaning eagle.

- 1934: Arrival in British mandatory Palestine.

- 1959: Elected a member of parliament for Mapai, which would later become the Labour party.

- 1984-1986: Prime minister of a Labour-Likud government of national unity.

- 1993: Oversees secret negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which lead to the signing of the Oslo accords.

- 1994: Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Yitzhak Rabin (assassinated November 1995) and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (died November 2004) for their role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

- 1995: Succeeds Rabin after his murder on November 4 as premier and head of the Labour party.

- June 2007: Elected Israel's ninth president.

- July 2014: Stands down as president nine days before his 91st birthday and during the Gaza war, handing over his duties to Reuven Rivlin.

Source: AFP