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Atticus Finch is born.
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Jeremy Atticus Finch is born.
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Jean Louise Finch is born.
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Atticus Finch's wife dies.
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The Depression begins in the United States.
The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939, and was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. -
The Scottsboro Boys are arrested.
The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American teenagers, ages 13 to 19, accused in Alabama of raping two White American women on a train in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. -
Atticus and Calpurnia are raising Scout and Jem.
Dill comes to visit his Aunt Rachel. He and the Finch children keep watch on the Radley house. - Summer 1933 -
Dill decides to make Boo Radley come out.
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Dill returns home. Scout starts first grade.
- Walter comes to dinner.
- Boo leaves two pieces of chewing gum in the Radley's oak tree.
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Jem and Scout find a small box.
Jem and Scout find a small box containing two shiny pennies. -
Jem, Scout and Dill try to look in Boo Radley's window.
Nathan Radley fires a shotgun. -
Scout starts second grade.
Scout and Jem find soap carvings of themselves in the knothole. -
Scout and Jem find a spelling medal.
"To our surprise, we found something else in the big old oak tree. It was an old spelling medal. Atticus told us that when he was younger, the winners at spelling bees would receive medals." -
Scout and Jem find a pocket watch.
Plus a chain, and a knife. -
The knothole is filled with cement.
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Tom Robinson is arrested.
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Mrs. Radley dies.
Date is not accurate. Mrs. Radley dies in that winter. -
Jem turns their snowman into a caricature of Mr. Avery.
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Miss Maudie's house burns down.
Boo puts a blanket around Scout. -
Atticus agrees to defend Tom Robinson.
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Cousin Francis calls Atticus a "Nigger lover." Scout fights him.
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Jem is punished for cutting off Mrs. Dubose's camellias.
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Mrs. Dubose dies.
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Jem and Scout go to Calpurnia's church.
Aunt Alexandra moves in. Dill returns to Maycomb. -
Atticus and the children stop a lynch mob at the jail.
Thought to be named after Charles Lynch, a planter from Virginia who held an "irregular court" intended to punish loyalists to the British, lynching was used to enforce both formal laws and numerous unwritten rules of conduct meant to assert white domination. -
The Trial - Scout, Jem and Dill sit in the balcony.
Testimony. Talk with Dolphus Raymond. Calpurnia comes to court. Tom Robinson is found guilty. -
Calpurnia discovers gifts of food on the porch.
"Atticus's eyes filled with tears... 'Tell them I'm very grateful... tell them they must never do this again. Times are too hard." -
Tom Robinson is shot dead in attempting to escape prison.
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Cecil Jacobs brings in an article about Hitler persecuting the Jews.
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Bob Ewell loses his job.
Leaves a hate note at the judge's home and stalks Helen Robinson. Scout prepares for a part in the Halloween pageant. -
Ewell attacks Scout and Jem.
Boo stabs Ewell. Scout sees Boo and escorts him home. -
Emmett Till is kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Money, Mississippi.
While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. -
To Kill a Mockingbird is published.
Ultimately, Lee spent over two and a half years writing To Kill a Mockingbird. The book was published on July 11, 1960. After rejecting the "Watchman" title, it was initially re-titled Atticus, but Lee renamed it "To Kill a Mockingbird" to reflect the story. -
The film version of To Kill a Mockingbird is released.
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Assassination of Medgar Evers.
In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, African American civil rights leader Medgar Evers is shot to death by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. -
"Freedom Summer" in Mississippi.
Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney murdered in Philadelphia, Miss. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.
