1537: The settlement of Rabinal is founded by Bartolomé de Las Casas, during his expedition into the lands of the Maya.
1572: Construction finished on the grand colonial Catholic Baroque church, a project begun by then Bishop of Chiapas Bartolomé de Las Casas.
1850s: Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, serving as Parish Priest, conducts some of the first ethnographic studies of the highland Maya and collects folk tales and documents making the first translations into European languages, of the Rabinal Achí.
1981-1982: Rabinal is the site of some of the bloodiest massacres in Guatemala's Civil War, including those of Plan de Sánchez and Río Negro. The actual town of Rabinal was also the site of a large-scale massacre during the Independence Day celebration of 1981
