Turn text into a timeline where every date shows its source
Paste text that mentions dates and get a timeline where each event quotes its sentence, keeps the date as precise as the text was, and flags conflicts.
Paste an article, a history, minutes, or research notes. You get a timeline of the events in it. Each event quotes the sentence it came from, and its date keeps exactly the precision your text gives: "the 1920s" stays a decade and "spring 1893" stays a season, never a made-up day. When sources disagree, a range can't be right, or a date can't be placed, you see a conflict to review instead of a silent guess. Accept, reject, edit, and reorder events, decide on each conflict, preview the result, and export the accepted events as Markdown, JSON, or a file ready for TimelineAI.
What to paste
Text that mentions dated events, optionally with a title, audience, date range to focus on, and level of detail.
What you get
Events in date order, each with its quoted sentence, date precision, confidence, and uncertainty, plus conflicts to review.
Try it
How AI is used. This tool drafts a proposal from your text. It can be wrong or incomplete. Items marked “From your text” quote where they came from; “Inferred” items are the AI's reasoning; “Needs your input” means your text didn't say.
Your text. Your text is sent to our server to build the timeline and isn't stored or logged. When live generation is on, it's also sent to an AI provider (Anthropic) to find the events. Don't paste private or personal material you don't want processed.
Optional details: title, audience, date range, level of detail
Paste your text or load the example to begin.
Worked example
A synthetic example you can run above with “Load the library-history example”. It works even when live generation is off, and its result is labelled as a prepared sample.
The Riverside Library was founded on 12 March 1891 by the town council. A reading room opened in the spring of 1893. The library moved to the old grain exchange in the 1920s. According to the council minutes, the move happened in 1924, but a 1950 newsletter says the library moved in 1927. The second floor was added between 1958 and 1956. During the war years the library lent books to the field hospital. A children's wing opened in June 1971. The card catalogue was digitised from 1998 to 2003.
How it works
- Your text is split into numbered sentences on our server. The AI copies each date exactly as written, and the server works out its precision with TimelineAI's own date parser.
- A date that isn't worded that way in the sentence it cites is removed, so a vague date can't come back as an exact one.
- Impossible ranges are found by TimelineAI's own conflict check, and disagreeing sources are kept side by side for you to decide.
- Accepted events export in TimelineAI's versioned import format, and every change runs fixed exact, partial, conflicting, and adversarial texts through the same checks.
How your text is handled: privacy. Terms for AI results: terms.
Limitations
- It only reads the text you paste: no links are followed, no files are read, and no facts are checked against other sources.
- Dates are read as written and in English date formats; anything else is shown as written with its precision marked unclear.
- It never decides which of two conflicting sources is right. That's your call.
- Nothing is published or sent to TimelineAI: you download the file and take it there yourself.
- Live generation isn't switched on yet: while this tool is experimental, only the example runs.
Built by Ali Safari at ASafariM Digital · Page last reviewed