User blog:The Lord Reader/Timeline

Pretty much what it says on the tin. Unless I change my mind, I do not plan it to be an article. Rather, all credits go this timeline on the Jim Butcher forums, which is in great parts copied here, but I think is inaccessible to some or if you don't have an account. It is also impossible to save the original timeline on the web archive, so this blog post also serve for recording purposes in case the original timeline get lost somehow.

Without further ado, a timeline trying to list the events in the Dresdenverse in chronological order. This timeline will try to harmonize the events from all the mediums that tell the stories of the Dresdenverse, so long as they are canon, things that happen in the story as it goes, things that have come to pass or mentioned in passing, and things that may. It will keep being updated, so don't worry if something is missing. References will also be added later. And because of its dubious canonicity, events mentionned in the Dresden Files RPG will be marked with an asterisk:

Preface from the original timeline: ''It's impossible to pin down exactly what year Harry was born due to continuity errors. One could say Harry couldn't have been born before 1974 because that's when David Copperfield assumed his stage name, but one could argue Harry couldn't have been born after 1972, because that marked end of routine smallpox vaccination in America. To allow for flexibility of interpretation, let's say "Storm Front" and "Fool Moon" take place in the year 0, and every thing else is either BSF (Before Storm Front) or ASF (After Storm Front). Smallpox aside, the timeline editor believes the most compelling data points to "Storm Front" taking place in 1999, putting Harry's birth in 1974:''
 * PRO: Works with mayoral elections
 * PRO: Major series events in the war with the Red Court dovetail with major post-9/11 historical events: terrorist paranoia, War on Terror, end or Iraq war, and death of bin Laden
 * PRO: Lydia's prophetic dream about the Challenger disaster in 1986 hits at a more plausible age (while still certainly plausible for Harry being born in 1976).  Assuming she's talking about the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981, this is also the most plausible.
 * PRO: Harry's birthday is on a full moon. This isn't mentioned in the books, but it's just cool. 
 * ISH: David Kotkin (age 18) takes the stage name "David Copperfield" in 1974, though his career doesn't take off until 1975.  Still, if Malcolm knew him from the SAM and even helped him choose a name, this isn't a deal-breaker.
 * CON: Butters assures Harry that he's vaccinated against smallpox, but routine vaccination of the American public stopped in 1972 after the disease was eradicated in the United States.
 * CON: Doesn't fit with Knight Rider timeline. The show aired from September 1982 (when 1974!Harry was just shy of 8 ) to April 1986 (when 1974!Harry was 11).  In "Ghost Story," Harry watches new episodes of Knight Rider when he's 13.  In order for the timeline to fit, Harry would've had to have been born between 1968 and 1973.  Alternately, Harry could've been watching reruns, but I doubt that was Jim's intention.

Primordial Times

 * Birth of the Universe, the Earth, and the Nevernever.
 * War of Angels: Lucifer rebels against the Almighty, but his rebellion is crushed and the archangel falls from Heaven and into Hell with the other angels who sided with him. Among them, Lasciel is banished from Heaven not for siding with Lucifer in the War of Angels, but rather because she tried playing both sides.
 * Birth of humanity.
 * The Old Ones, who ruled over the mortal world, are cast outside of reality, notably by humans having the help of the old gods.

67 million years ago

 * Sue roams the Earth.

circa 2000 B.C.

 * Birth/Rebirth of the Red King Kukulkan, who is about 4000 years old in Changes.

2nd millenium B.C.

 * A Shoggoth is unleashed on Hammurabi's Babylon.

8th century B.C.

 * The past Archives act as the Pythia, the oracles of Delphi, using their knowledge of the past to deduce the most probable future.

August 24

 * The eruption of Mount Vesuvius is the doing of an angered Genius loci.