Timeline Maker
Type one event per line — a date, a label and an optional description — and get a timeline drawn to scale or evenly spaced, horizontal or vertical. Years, months and full dates all work, BCE included, and a date range becomes a period band. Download the timeline as SVG or PNG for an essay, a poster or a slide.
A date is a year (1066), a year and month (1969-07) or a full date (1969-07-20). Add BCE or BC for years before the Common Era (44 BCE) and c. for an approximate date (c. 1450). A range such as 1914 – 1918 makes a period, drawn as a band. The description is optional; separate the parts with | or a tab.
8 events · 3 periods
In proportion to time, the gaps between dots mean something; evenly spaced keeps crowded years legible but drops the scale, so the axis has no ticks.
Show the timeline as a table
| Date | Event or period | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 753 BCE | Rome is founded | The traditional date, from Roman legend |
| 753 BCE – 509 BCE | Kingdom | |
| 509 BCE | The Republic begins | The last king is expelled |
| 509 BCE – 27 BCE | Republic | |
| 264 BCE | First Punic War begins | Rome's first war against Carthage |
| 44 BCE | Julius Caesar is assassinated | On the Ides of March |
| 27 BCE | Augustus becomes the first emperor | Octavian is given the title Augustus |
| 27 BCE – 476 CE | Empire | |
| 79 CE | Vesuvius erupts | Pompeii and Herculaneum are buried |
| 117 CE | The empire at its greatest extent | At the death of Trajan |
| 476 CE | The Western Roman Empire falls | Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus |
Title and figure style
Takes the title out of the image and sets the figure number in bold and the title in italics above it — the APA 7 layout.
How to Use the Timeline Maker
- 1. Enter your events. One per line: the date, a vertical bar, the label, and optionally another bar and a short description —
1969-07-20 | Apollo 11 lands on the Moon | First crewed landing. A tab works in place of the bar, so you can paste two or three columns from a spreadsheet. - 2. Add periods. A line whose date is a range, such as
1914 – 1918 | World War I, becomes a band beside the axis. Bands that overlap get lanes of their own; periods that only share a boundary year, like a republic that ends the year an empire begins, stay in one lane. - 3. Choose the direction and spacing. Horizontal suits up to about ten events and a slide or poster; vertical gives every event a full line and suits long lists. Spacing in proportion to time makes the gaps meaningful; evenly spaced gives crowded stretches room.
- 4. Title and download. Set a title, pick the color of the events, switch on APA style figure for a paper, and download SVG or PNG. The data table under the timeline lists every line in date order.
Writing Dates the Tool Understands
| You type | It reads |
|---|---|
| 1066 | The year 1066 |
| 1969-07 | July 1969 |
| 1969-07-20 | July 20, 1969 |
| 44 BCE, 44 BC or −44 | 44 years before the Common Era |
| 79, 79 CE or AD 79 | The year 79 of the Common Era |
| c. 1450 | About 1450, drawn with a hollow dot |
| 1914 – 1918 | A period from the start of 1914 to the end of 1918 |
Dates are written year first, as in ISO 8601, so 1969-07-04 always means July 4, never April 7.
There is no year zero: 1 BCE is followed directly by 1 CE. That makes spans across the boundary one year shorter than simple subtraction suggests — from 44 BCE to 79 CE is 122 years, not 123 — and the tool's spacing allows for it. When a timeline includes any BCE date, every year on it is labeled BCE or CE, so 79 is never mistaken for a two-digit modern year. Old dates are taken as written: the tool does not convert between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, a difference of days that no timeline at this scale can show.
To Scale or Evenly Spaced?
A timeline drawn to scale makes the gaps part of the message. The example runs from the traditional founding of Rome in 753 BCE to the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, 1,228 years, and at that scale the assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BCE) and the first emperor (27 BCE), 17 years apart, almost touch — the crowding itself shows how quickly the Republic ended. Close events are stacked in levels above the axis, each card joined to its dot by a leader line.
Evenly spaced puts the events in order with equal room, which suits a list where some decades are packed and others empty, or a story told in steps. The axis then has no scale and no ticks, and periods stretch between the events either side of their dates. Say in a caption or note which spacing you used, because a reader will otherwise assume the distances mean something.
Timelines for History and Literature
- History essays. Put the events your argument depends on in order, and mark the eras as bands: a timeline makes cause and consequence — or a claimed cause that came too late — visible before you write.
- Literature. Chart an author's life against their publications, or a novel's events against the history around them. For a story's plot without dates, a story map or plot diagram suits better than a timeline.
- Research. In a literature review, a timeline of the key studies shows how a field developed — which findings came first and what followed from them.
Example: an author's life and works
1797-08-30 | Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin is born | In London 1816 | A ghost-story contest at the Villa Diodati | The summer that led to Frankenstein 1818-01-01 | Frankenstein is published | Anonymously, in London 1831 | Revised edition of Frankenstein | With a new introduction by the author 1851-02-01 | Mary Shelley dies | In London
In a paper, a timeline is a figure. With APA style figure on, the bold figure number and italic title sit above the image; give the sources of your dates in a note beneath it, and keep the era labels consistent with your text — BCE and CE, or BC and AD, but not a mixture.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I make a timeline with BC dates?
- Type the year followed by BCE or BC —
44 BCE— or put a minus sign in front of it. The tool places BCE and CE years on one continuous scale and labels every year with its era once any BCE date is present. There is no year 0, so do not type one; 1 BCE is followed by 1 CE. - Is there a year zero?
- No. The BCE/CE (and BC/AD) system counts 1 BCE and then 1 CE, so a span across the boundary is one year shorter than subtracting the numbers suggests: 10 BCE to 10 CE is 19 years. Astronomers use a year 0 for calculations, which is why some software shows 44 BCE as year −43; this tool accepts the historians' numbering and does that conversion itself.
- Should a timeline be drawn to scale?
- Draw it to scale when the length of the gaps matters to your point — a slow build-up or a sudden cluster of events. Space it evenly when events bunch together so tightly that their labels would pile up, or when only the order matters. If you choose even spacing, say so, because readers read distance as time.
- How do I show eras or periods on a timeline?
- Write the period's dates as a range, such as
27 BCE – 476 | Empire, and it becomes a band beside the axis, labeled inside if it is wide enough. Overlapping periods get separate lanes; a period that ends in the year the next begins stays in the same lane, cut to meet its neighbour. - How many events fit on a timeline?
- A horizontal timeline is comfortable with about ten events; past twelve the tool suggests the vertical layout, which gives every event its own line and grows as long as the list. Short labels help either way — put detail in the description, which can run to four lines.
- Can I add a picture or change the font?
- No. Every timeline uses a sans-serif typeface, as APA 7 recommends for figures, and contains only text, dots, leader lines and bands. Download the SVG if you want to add images or restyle it in a drawing program — every label stays editable text.