Here is my attempt at a complete, detailed timeline of the Doctor Who universe. As you can imagine, after more than 150 stories broadcast over a period of more than twenty-five years, most of those dealing with time-travel, things can get pretty complicated and, all too often, muddled. So, I decided, mostly for myself, to put things in order.

I was originally inspired to put this chronology together from reading Michael and Denise Okuda's Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future. I thought to myself how great it would be to have a similar set-up for Doctor Who. I started work in early 1996, before I knew that Virgin books would be releasing Lance Parkin's A History of the Universe later that year (although I have gratefully... ahem... borrowed some dates from Mr. Parkin). It took slightly over three to years to finish the task, eventually reformatting the entire timeline so that it is visually more like my original inspiration, the Okudas' History.

Some notes about this chronology:

• I have only used televised adventures. These run from "100 000 BC" in 1963 to "Survival" in 1989. I also include the uncompleted story "Shada," the spin-off special "K-9 and Company," and the 1996 Fox TV movie. I do not include the Virgin or BBC novels, the Doctor Who Magazine comic strips or any other sources. This is not a statement on the quality of these stories; this is just my personal version of the Doctor Who canon.
• I have occasionally used dates given in novelisations of televised stories when there was a lack of other dating evidence. For the lost episodes I sometimes use the tele-snap archives printed in Doctor Who Magazine and on-line transcripts of scripts.
• For the most part, contemporary adventures are set in the year the story was broadcast. If a story was shown over two calendar years (over December-January), it is set in the latter year.
• If a story takes place on another world which appears to have no connection to Earth (e.g. "The Dominators," "The Horns of Nimon"), I am assuming they are contemporary.
• Real historical events are generally only included if specifically mentioned in the program.
• Figures given for past events are assumed to be exact, unless later elaborated on. For example, if an event is said to happen "about 100 years ago," I assume that it happened exactly 100 years ago. This is just to help simplify the task. I don't bother doing this for particularly large numbers such as "10 million years." Similarly, if an event is said to take place "almost" or "more than" a specific amount of time, I add or subtract one year from that date. For example, something that happened "almost 50 years ago" would be listed as having taken place 49 years previously.
• Sometimes, when unable to place an event, I have borrowed dates from other chronologies, including the one in Jean-Marc Lofficier's The Terrestrial Index, James C. Armstrong's timeline at the Nitro9 FTP site, and, of course, Lance Parkin's A History of the Universe. I have also used some information from The Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping.
• When an event takes place at an unspecified time in a century, I use Lance Parkin's convention of using the story's "anniversary." For example, if a story takes place sometime in the 26th century and was broadcast in 1976, it is placed in 2576.
• Gallifrey has been portrayed as existing in the past, present and future. For simplicity's sake, I have decided to make Gallifrey contemporary with Earth.
• The Trouble with Unit
• Previously, in my attempt to organise every scene from the show, I had listed events that took place in the Vortex on their own. I have eliminated this section, as I feel it did not really add much to the overall project. The only episode which is not mentioned in the timeline as a result of this is "Inside the Spaceship: The Edge of Destruction." Do with it what you will.

That about wraps it up. Please let me know what you think of my work here. Let me know if I've done well, feel free to disagree with some of my decisions, or point out the inevitable blunders. You can mail me at dascott@islandnet.com. Thank you kindly.

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