First Timeline - A Chart of Biography

Early and influential timeline from 1765, by Joseph Priestley. Although a new concept, Priestley argued that the abstract idea of time could be displayed on a line. "Priestley argues that although time in itself is an abstraction that may not be 'the object of any of our senses, and no image can properly be made of it, yet because it has a relation to quantity, and we can say a greater or less space of time, it admits of a natural and easy representation in our minds by the idea of a measurable space, and particularly that of a LINE.'"
-Rosenberg, Cabinet Magazine 2004