History Timelines & Maps
Free printable history timelines for kids — the American Revolution, Civil War, westward expansion, colonial America and more, each with dates, kid-friendly summaries, and a blank fill-in version. Plus antique-style US history maps.
US History
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American Revolution Timeline
The American Revolution was the war in which the thirteen colonies broke away from Great Britain and became the United States.
Civil War Timeline
The Civil War was the war between the Northern states (the Union) and the Southern states (the Confederacy) over slavery, states’ rights, and whether states could leave the Union.
US History Timeline
This timeline walks through some of the biggest milestones in United States history, from the first European voyages to the Moon landing.
Westward Expansion Timeline
Westward expansion is the period when the United States grew across the continent, as settlers, trails, and railroads pushed toward the Pacific.
Colonial America Timeline
Colonial America is the period when European settlers built the thirteen colonies that would later become the United States.
Civil Rights Movement Timeline
The Civil Rights Movement was a struggle by Black Americans to end legal discrimination and win equal rights under the law, led by figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Great Depression Timeline
The Great Depression was the worst economic crisis in American history, beginning with the 1929 stock market crash and lasting through the 1930s.
Cold War Timeline
The Cold War was a decades-long rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, fought through arms races, proxy wars, and the constant threat of nuclear destruction.
Space Race Timeline
The Space Race was a Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to achieve milestones in space exploration, culminating in the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Vietnam War Timeline
The Vietnam War was a long and deeply divisive conflict in which the United States spent two decades trying to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam — and ultimately failed.
Women's Suffrage Timeline
The women's suffrage movement was a 72-year campaign that won American women the right to vote, culminating in the 19th Amendment in 1920.
Reconstruction Era Timeline
Reconstruction was the period after the Civil War when the federal government worked to reunite the nation and define the rights of formerly enslaved Black Americans.
Trail of Tears Timeline
The Trail of Tears was the forced removal of Native American nations from their homelands in the southeastern United States to territory west of the Mississippi River, resulting in the deaths of thousands.
Korean War Timeline
The Korean War was the first major military conflict of the Cold War, in which the United States and its allies fought to defend South Korea from a communist invasion — ending in a stalemate that divides Korea to this day.
Manifest Destiny Timeline
Manifest Destiny was the 19th-century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the entire North American continent, shaping half a century of territorial growth through diplomacy, war, and settlement.
Harlem Renaissance Timeline
The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of Black American art, literature, music, and intellectual life centered in Harlem, New York City, during the 1920s and 1930s — one of the most creative and influential cultural movements in American history.
Gilded Age Timeline
The Gilded Age was an era of explosive industrial growth in the United States — a time when railroads, steel, and oil created enormous fortunes for a few, while millions of workers labored in dangerous conditions for low wages, and new immigrants flooded into American cities.
Progressive Era Timeline
The Progressive Era was a period of sweeping reform in the United States — when journalists, activists, and politicians fought to rein in the power of corporations, clean up government corruption, improve conditions for workers, and expand democracy.
Constitutional Convention Timeline
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 produced the United States Constitution — the world's oldest written national constitution still in use — after the nation's first attempt at self-government had nearly collapsed.
World History
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World War II Timeline
World War II was the largest war in history, fought across Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. The United States entered the war in December 1941 after Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
World War I Timeline
World War I was a global war fought mainly in Europe from 1914 to 1918. The United States stayed neutral for three years before entering on the Allied side in 1917.
Industrial Revolution Timeline
The Industrial Revolution transformed the world from a farming society to a factory society, beginning in Britain and spreading across Europe and America.
French Revolution Timeline
The French Revolution overthrew the monarchy and transformed France, spreading ideas of liberty and equality that changed politics across Europe and the world.
Middle Ages Timeline
The Middle Ages lasted roughly a thousand years after the fall of Rome, shaped by feudalism, the Catholic Church, crusades, and plagues — ending on the eve of the Renaissance.
Age of Exploration Timeline
The Age of Exploration was the period when European sailors mapped the world, opening sea routes to Asia, reaching the Americas, and beginning a new era of global trade — and colonization.
Renaissance Timeline
The Renaissance was a rebirth of art, learning, and science in Europe, beginning in Italy and spreading across the continent — bridging the Middle Ages and the modern world.
Aztec Empire Timeline
The Aztec Empire was one of the most powerful civilizations in the pre-Columbian Americas, ruling central Mexico from their island capital Tenochtitlan until the Spanish conquest in 1521.
Maya Civilization Timeline
The Maya civilization was one of the most sophisticated in the ancient Americas, known for pyramid cities, a complex writing system, advanced mathematics, and an extraordinarily accurate calendar.
Inca Empire Timeline
The Inca Empire was the largest empire in the pre-Columbian Americas, stretching along the western coast of South America from Colombia to Chile, governed from the mountain capital of Cusco.
Russian Revolution Timeline
The Russian Revolution ended three centuries of Romanov rule, brought the Bolsheviks to power, and created the world's first communist state — the Soviet Union.
Holocaust Timeline
The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of approximately six million Jewish people by Nazi Germany — the largest genocide of the 20th century, carried out across occupied Europe during World War II.
The Crusades Timeline
The Crusades were a series of religious wars launched by European Christians to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslim rule — nearly two centuries of warfare that shaped the medieval world and left a lasting mark on relations between Christianity and Islam.
Black Death Timeline
The Black Death was the deadliest pandemic in human history — a wave of bubonic plague that swept across Europe from 1347 to 1353, killing an estimated 30 to 60 percent of Europe's entire population and transforming medieval society.
Ottoman Empire Timeline
The Ottoman Empire was one of history's greatest empires — a Turkish state that grew from a small principality in Anatolia into a civilization spanning three continents, lasting more than 600 years before collapsing after World War I.
Mongol Empire Timeline
The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in history — built by Genghis Khan and his descendants in just a few decades, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to Eastern Europe and ruling over a third of the world's population at its peak.
Viking Age Timeline
The Viking Age was a period of Norse exploration, trade, and raiding that transformed medieval Europe — sending Scandinavian warriors and settlers as far as North America in the west and Central Asia in the east.
Holy Roman Empire Timeline
The Holy Roman Empire was a sprawling multi-ethnic realm in central Europe that lasted nearly 850 years — from the coronation of Otto I in 962 to its dissolution by Napoleon in 1806 — never quite a unified nation, yet central to medieval and early modern European history.
Ancient History
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Ancient Rome Timeline
Ancient Rome grew from a small city on the banks of the Tiber River into the greatest empire of the ancient world, lasting over a thousand years.
Ancient Egypt Timeline
Ancient Egypt was one of the world's first great civilizations, ruled by pharaohs along the Nile River for more than 3,000 years.
Ancient Greece Timeline
Ancient Greece gave the world democracy, philosophy, the Olympics, and some of history's greatest art and literature, flourishing in independent city-states along the Mediterranean.
Ancient China Timeline
Ancient China produced some of history's most enduring civilizations, giving the world writing, paper, the Silk Road, and two thousand years of dynastic rule.
Ancient Mesopotamia Timeline
Ancient Mesopotamia — the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq — is called the cradle of civilization, home to the world's first cities, first writing, and first law codes.
Ancient India Timeline
Ancient India was home to one of the world's first urban civilizations — the Indus Valley Civilization — and later gave rise to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and the Maurya Empire, one of the largest empires of the ancient world.
Persian Empire Timeline
The Persian Empire — founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 BC — was the largest empire the ancient world had ever seen, stretching from Greece to India and governed through a revolutionary system of provinces, roads, and religious tolerance.
Science & Discovery
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History of Electricity Timeline
The history of electricity is the story of how humans went from kite-flying in thunderstorms to lighting cities, building power grids, and inventing the transistor — the tiny device that makes every computer and smartphone possible.
Evolution & Natural Selection Timeline
The theory of evolution by natural selection — developed by Charles Darwin in the 19th century and confirmed at the molecular level in the 20th — is the central organizing theory of all biology, explaining how all living things are related and how species change over time.
History of Astronomy Timeline
The history of astronomy is the story of how humans figured out what the universe actually is — from ancient Greeks who proposed the Earth moves around the Sun, to telescopes that see to the edge of time itself.
Dinosaurs Timeline
Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for over 165 million years — rising after a mass extinction, dominating every ecosystem on every continent, and disappearing in a sudden catastrophe that gave rise to the mammals, and eventually, to us.
Germ Theory & Vaccines Timeline
Germ theory — the discovery that invisible microorganisms cause infectious disease — is one of medicine's most life-saving ideas, transforming surgery, public health, and disease prevention in less than a century.
Computing & Internet History Timeline
The history of computing is the story of how humans went from filling entire rooms with calculating machines to putting a more powerful computer in every pocket — transforming every aspect of work, communication, science, and daily life in under a century.
Antique-style US history maps
Real history, made to print
Every timeline here is built from a checked list of dated events, not AI-generated art — the same grounded approach as our maps. Each one prints cleanly on Letter paper and comes with a blank fill-in version for review and quizzes.
This is a growing collection. More timelines, and history reference printables like a presidents chart, are on the way.