1809
12 February 1809 – Abraham Lincoln is born in Kentucky to parents Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks.
1816
The Lincoln family moves to Indiana.
1818
Lincoln’s mother dies.
1819
Thomas Lincoln travels to Kentucky to marry Sarah Bush Johnston, who, along with her children, accompanies her new husband back to Indiana.
1828
Lincoln accepts a job building a flatboat to carry cargo down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans.
1830
The Lincoln family moves once again, this time to Illinois.
1831
Lincoln is offered a job as a clerk in charge of Offutt’s store and mill in New Salem, Illinois.
1832
A treaty dispute leads to the formation of a militia company in New Salem. Abraham Lincoln is elected their captain and receives his first experience of being elected to office.
Lincoln announces his candidacy for the Illinois General Assembly and begins ‘stumping’.
1834
Lincoln meets Major John Todd Stuart following their election to the Illinois State Legislature. Stuart offers to lend his law books to Lincoln.
1836
Lincoln earns his law licence.
Lincoln is re-elected to state legislature.
1837
Lincoln moves to Springfield, Illinois, to join Stuart in his law practice.
1838
Lincoln is re-elected to state legislature.
1839
Mary Ann Todd moves to Springfield, Illinois.
1842
4 November 1842 – Abraham Lincoln and Mary Ann Todd are married.
1844
Lincoln partners with William Herndon, one of his eventual biographers.
1854
Congressman Stephen Douglas pushes through the Kansas-Nebraska Act, reversing the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
6 July 1854 – The first ever Republican convention is held.
1858
Lincoln is nominated as the Republican candidate for Illinois for the Senate.
The Lincoln–Douglas Debates take place.
1860
Lincoln runs for president.
Lincoln becomes the first Republican president of the United States.
1861
February 1861 – Jefferson Davis becomes the first and last president of the Confederacy.
4 March 1861 – Lincoln is inaugurated.
12 April 1861 – The American Civil war begins.
13 April 1861 – Fort Sumter falls.
23 May 1861 – West Virginia splits from Virginia.
November 1861 – Lincoln loses General Winfield Scott’s counsel.
1862
22 September – Lincoln passes the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.
1863
1–3 July 1863 – The Battle of Gettysburg.
19 November 1863 – Lincoln speaks at a dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg.
1865
9 April 1865 – Generals Lee and Grant discuss the terms of surrender.
10 May 1865 – The American Civil War is declared over (the last shots are fired on 22 June).
14 April 1865 – Lincoln is fatally shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater.
15 April 1865 – Abraham Lincoln dies.