PARIS, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - A year ago, on August 9, 2007, a fund run by French bank BNP Paribas sent distress signals.

The European Central Bank, already alarmed by signs of strain on interest rate markets, intervened by providing emergency funding to eurozone banks.

It was to prove the first of several, and increasingly aggressive, measures by central banks in a titanic and successful battle to prevent a failure of the international banking system.

But the world now faces the aftermath of the storm in the form of slowing growth, to the verge of recession in some countries, and lessons arising from what went wrong and what was done in response.

The problem that shook the markets of the world had been rumbling for many months in the market for mortgages for people in the United States with modest means, tempted by low interest rates and seemingly ever-rising house prices.

Banks which sold them loans then repackaged future repayments and sold them as so-called securitised paper with good credit ratings to investment houses around the world...until the interest rates rose and house prices fell.

US interest rates rose from 1.0 percent to 5.35 percent from 2004 to 2006. Here are some of the key dates in the financial crisis which then spread like wildfire across borders.

February 2007: The US subprime mortgage sector shows signs of strain.

June 2007: Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns is the banking world's first high-profile sub-prime casualty. It tells investors that they will get little, if any, of the money invested in two of its hedge funds after rival banks refuse to help it bail them out.

July: Germany's IKB bank falls into crisis as investors pull money out of IKB-managed Rhineland Funding, which is exposed to shaky US real estate loans.

Aug 3: Shares fall heavily on fears of sub-prime losses and a global credit crunch.

Aug 9: The scale of the credit crisis emerges when the European Central Bank injects 94.8 billion euros (146.7 billion dollars) into the euro money supply, after BNP Paribas, France's biggest bank, says it had suspended three of its funds that were exposed to the US mortgage crisis.

The US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan take similar steps, in the first of several interventions by central banks.

'This is the day the world changed,' according to Adam Applegarth, then chief executive of British morgage lender Northern Rock.

- Aug 10: Global equity prices plunge again.

- Sept: Britain's fifth largest mortgage lender Northern Rock is rescued by the Bank of England, prompting savers to queue up to retrieve their money in the first run on a British bank for 140 years.

- Sept: Banks begin writing off losses, in billions and some cases, tens of billion fo dollars and euros. Among many others, Citibank eventually writes off about 50 billion dollars. Union Bank Suisse (UBS) writes down over 37 billion dollars, while France's Credit Agricole writes off 4.2 billion euros.

- Jan 2008: The US economy succumbes to housing and credit troubles in December as just 18,000 jobs are added and the unemployment rate rises to 5.0 percent, highlighting fears of recession.

- Jan 22: The US Federal Reserve cuts its key federal funds short-term interest rate by three quarters of a percentage point to 3.50 percent.

- Feb 17: Britain's ailing mortgage lender Northern Rock is nationalised after the government acquires all the bank's shares.

- March 11: Central banks make another coordinated attempt to ease conditions in the credit markets by announcing 200 billion dollars of new emergency lending for banks.

- March 16: US banking giant JPMorgan Chase takes over crisis-hit investment bank Bear Stearns for 236 million dollars, a fraction of its share price, in a deal backed by 30 billion dollars in Fed loans.

- July 2008: California mortgage financier IndyMac fails and is rescued. Fannie and Freddie. Pressure mounts on Freddie Mac and Fannie MAe, the US sponsored mortgage financiers, forcing the US Treasury to announce a rescue plan.

- Stocks plunge again.

- Late July: Merrill Lynch dumps distressed mortgage assets and raises fresh capital.

- August 5: The former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, tells the Financial Times: 'This crisis is different -- a once or twice a century event deeply rooted in fears of insolvency of major financial institutions.'