Concept and How to make a

We explain that it is a timeline and what it can be used for.In addition, the different steps to make one.

A timeline allows you to visually organize the information of a topic.

What is a timeline?

It is known as a timeline (or timeline in English) to a sequential arrangement of events on a subject , so that you can appreciate the chronological order of these events.Said in simpler terms, it is a way to visually organize the information of a subject, so that the historical order in which the central milestones of the subject in question occurred can be appreciated.

It is a technique widely used in the educational context, either in history books or in exhibitions, since allows the sequential ordering of information along a line or arrow that indicates the direction in which the historical time elapses, therefore, the events to the left will be the oldest, and the most to the tip of the arrow or to the right end of the line will be the most recent.

With the timelines, the different eras or historical epochs of the h are commonly organized umanity or of a certain region or population ; the specific events that took place within a given context (such as in a war, a revolution, a specific government, etc.); or the determining historical moments in the particular history of a person, a technology or a knowledge.

Often, whatever the case may be, events of historical or universal importance are often also located to shed context or establish comparative relationships with other different processes, whether it is a different country or region, or universal history of humanity.This is often called a comparative timeline.

See also: Ancient Age.

Steps to make a timeline

Events are distributed chronologically in the timeline.

To develop a timeline, the following steps must be followed:

• Determine the scale of the same.It must be decided what time period the graph covers: if all human history, a specific government, a specific year, a specific century, or from a specific century to the present, etc.


• Determine the main milestones.The most important or transcendental events of the information that will be represented on the line must be located and organized beforehand, since these great milestones will be the main ones of the graph.


• Determine the contextual information.What other milestones or events of general importance-do not already specify on our subject to address-should it be highlighted in the timeline to give context? For example, if we want to represent the key moments of the French Revolution, we probably want to highlight historical events that accompanied it in other neighboring countries.


• Draw the line and locate the points.The line is drawn from left to right and on it the previously determined information is distributed, in chronological order, moving towards the present (or the end of the period of interest).