Pre-1803: The Bottom is bequeathed to a slave after he completes a series of difficult tasks. A mostly black community later settles it.
1872: Rochelle Sabat is born in New Orleans.
1885: Helene Sabat is born behind the shutter doors of a prostitution home called the "Sundown House."
1890: Eva and BoyBoy get married. They move to Medallion so that BoyBoy can work for a white carpenter. Hannah, Eva and BoyBoy's eldest child, is born.
1892: Eva births Pearl.
1895: Eva has her last child, Plum (Ralph). BoyBoy leaves Eva and the children, and Eva leaves her children with her neighbors The Suggs for 18 months.
1897: Shadrack is born. Eva returns to Medallion with a missing leg and money. Construction begins on Eva's house.
1898: BoyBoy visits Medallion and stops by Eva's house. Eva decides that she hates him and begins to spend more time on the upper level of the house.
1901: Helene Sabat and Wiley Wright are wed. The couple leaves New Orleans for Medallion. Ajax is born.
1902: Eva finished building her house.
1907: Pearl, 14 years old, gets married and relocates to Flint, Michigan with her husband. Jude Green is born.
1910: Eva no longer comes downstairs at all. Nel is born to Helene and Wiley. Rekus and Hannah have Sula.
1913: Rekus dies. Hannah returns with Sula to Medallion to live with Eva.
1917: Shadrack has a traumatic experience at war. Plum leaves to fight in World War I.
1919: Shadrack is prematurely released from the Veteran's hospital to make room for other patients. After being arrested, he stumbles into the Bottom. Plum returns Stateside but does not yet return to Medallion.
1920: On January 3, Shadrack carries out the first observance of National Suicide Day. The people of the Bottom are confused and frightened. Helene receives news that her grandmother, Cecile Sabat is ill, and she decides that she and 10-year-old Nel will travel to New Orleans to see her. Tar Baby begins to live at Eva's house. Plum returns to Eva's house with a drug addiction to heroin that December.
1921: This January 3, the residents of the Bottom are used to Shadrack's madness. National Suicide Day is integrated into their yearly schedules. Shadrack sells fish for money, which he then uses to buy alcohol. Eva sets Plum on fire. Eva takes the Deweys into her home to live.
1922: Sula cuts her own finger to frighten a gang of white bullies. Sula is hurt when she hears her mother say that she loves her but does not like her. Sula accidentally swings Chicken Little into the lake where he drowns. Nel and Shadrack are the only others who know about the accident.
1923: Hannah asks Eva if she ever loved her children and then asks why Eva killed Plum. Hannah burns and dies in an accidental fire that spreads to her clothing when she is doing laundry. Sula watches her mother burn from the porch. Eva jumps out of her window in an attempt to extinguish the flames on Hannah.
1927: Nel marries Jude Greene. Sula leaves Medallion to go to college and travel the country. New River Road is built but not blacks are hired to help construct it.
1937: A "plague of robins" comes to Medallion. Sula returns to Medallion. Sula places Eva in a nursing home. Sula has an affair with Jude Greene, and Nel stops speaking to her. Jude leaves for Detroit.
1939: Ajax and Sula begin to see each other. Tar Baby is arrested and assaulted by the police.
1940: Ajax leaves for Dayton, Ohio. Sula becomes sick, and Nel visits her on her deathbed. Sula dies. Medallion frosts over, and the people experience sickness and low spirits.
1941: January 3 marks the last National Suicide Day. People from the Bottom join Shadrack as he marches down Carpenter's Road. Many of them die trying to destroy the unfinished tunnel project that never hired any black workers.
1965: Nel visits Eva at her nursing home. Nel reflects on her decisions regarding her relationship with Sula. She accepts that she played a role in Chicken's death and acknowledges that she has missed Sula deeply.
