The Movie Timeline - it's like a timeline, but of movies
Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson in a rape trial. (To Kill A Mockingbird)
Thursday 16th June: Mae West leaves New York for California to make her first film. (Mae West)
Sunday 21st August: The alleged rape of Mayella Ewell by Tom Robinson. (Maycomb, Alabama - To Kill A Mockingbird)
September: Idgie Threadgoode takes a pregnant Ruth Bennet away from her abusive husband. (Georgia - Fried Green Tomatoes)
September: Scout Finch starts school, and wears a dress she hates. (To Kill A Mockingbird)
Thursday 27th October: Sylvia Plath is born. (Boston, Massachusetts - Sylvia)
Tuesday 13th December: Prof. Auguste A. Topaze is unfairly dismissed from his teaching position when the Baroness Hortense de la Tour complains that he won't show special treatment to her spoiled son, Charlemagne. (France - Topaze)
Philip Marlowe becomes a private investigator. (The Big Sleep)
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo go to New York so Diego can paint a mural comissioned by Nelson Rockefeller. (New York - Frida)
Don Narducci extorts money from Vincenzo Cartino on his son Joey's birthday. (New York - Jane Austen's Mafia!)
Fay Wray stars in King Kong. (New York - King Kong)
King Kong is discovered on Skull Island and set loose in New York. (King Kong)
Oil found in Saudi Arabia. (The Kingdom)
Grace and her father head south from Dogville with their group of gangsters. (Manderlay)
Year Of The Scorpion; Imhotep is resurrected once again to fight The Scorpion King. (The Mummy Returns)
Depression; Noodles released from prison. (Once Upon a Time in America)
Adolf Hitler appointed German Chancellor, and granted dictatorial powers. (Germany - The Pianist)
The court case of black man Tom Robinson's alleged rape of white farmer's daughter Mayella Ewell. (Maycomb, Alabama - To Kill A Mockingbird)
Monday 2nd January: William "Kid" Gleason dies. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Eight Men Out)
Monday 30th January: Adolf Hitler is named chancellor of Germany. (Hitler: The Last Ten Days)
Tuesday 7th March: Harold Nixon dies of tuberculosis. (Nixon)
Tuesday 23rd May: Joan Collins is born. (London, England - Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure)
Thursday 15th June: George "Machine Gun" Kelly's kidnaps millionaire oilman Charles Urschel, and collects a $200,000 ransom before his capture by the FBI. (Machine-Gun Kelly)
Thursday 29th June: Fatty Arbuckle dies of a heart attack. (New York, New York - The Black Dahlia)
Saturday 22nd July: American aviator Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field, having flown solo around the world in 7 days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes. (New York - Story of Will Rogers, The )
Wednesday 20th September: Hot on the heels of her breakout recording "Weary", Winnie Wharton follows the advice of her new manager, Lucky Lorimer, and inks a contract with Acme Record Co. (New York, NY - Broadway Hostess)
Saturday 30th September: Frank Bennet is killed trying to kidnap his and Ruth's baby. (Whistle Stop, AL - Fried Green Tomatoes)
Saturday 28th October: Jem and Scout are attacked by Mr Ewell, who is stabbed and killed, presumably by Boo Radley, though the Sheriff's ruling is that Mr Ewell fell on his own knife. (Maycomb, Alabama - To Kill A Mockingbird)
Karen Blixen publishes her first stories under the name Isak Dinesen. (not in Africa - Out of Africa)
Wednesday 23rd May: Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are gunned down. (Texas - Bonnie and Clyde)
Saturday 2nd June: Monty Stratton makes his Major League debut with the Chicago White Sox. (Chicago, Illinois - The Stratton Story)
Friday 6th July: The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) appoints Joseph Breen head of the Production Code Administration. (The Aviator)
Wednesday 18th July: Public Enemy Number One, Sonny "Dinkie" Black, leader of the notorious Purple Gang, is gunned down by Federal Agents outside the Bijou Vaudeville Theater on Washington Street. (Milwaukee, WI - Public Hero #1)
Sunday 22nd July: Outside the Biograph Theatre, notorious criminal John Dillinger - America's "Public Enemy No 1" - is killed in a hail of bullets by federal agents. (Chicago, Illinois - Dillinger and Capone )
Monday 20th August: After wandering the world for 10 years, taking odd newspaper jobs in Calcutta, London, Paris and Melbourne, Sam Preston decides it's time to return to the family he abandoned in Silvertown, Colorado. (Shanghai, China - Mary Jane's Pa)
Friday 5th October: Painter Eben Adams crashes on the rocks along the Land's End coast during a tidal storm only he expected; here he finds and again loses his supernatural muse, Jennie Appleton, to the overwhelming waves pounding the shore. (Land's End, Massachusetts - Portrait of Jennie)
Monday 22nd October: "Pretty Boy" Floyd is killed by the FBI. (East Liverpool, Ohio - Pretty Boy Floyd)
13 year-old Briony Tallis writes her first work - The Trials of Arrabella. (Atonement)
Rick runs guns to Ethiopia. (Casablanca)
John Kinsella moves to Brooklyn. (Field of Dreams)
Ed Morrow debuts on CBS. (Good Night, and Good Luck)
John Coffey is executed on Death Row for a crime he didn't commit. (The Green Mile)
Indiana Jones escapes Chinese gangsters in Shanghai before falling into the Thuggee cult's plot in India. (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
Pet store owner Johnny Kelly recalls his life as a criminal to a boy who tried to steal from him. (Johnny Dangerously)
Clive Candy shoots a Moufflon. (Corsica - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp)
There is a murder, on the Orient Express. (Murder on the Orient Express)
Brian Jackson's father is born. (Starter for Ten)
Thursday 30th May: Babe Ruth plays final professional baseball game. (The Babe)
Thursday 6th June: Theodor Kretschmar-Schuldorff arrives in England. (England - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp)
Tuesday 11th June: Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silberman) is born. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Gilda Radner: It's Always Something )
Thursday 13th June: The Great Depression; boxer James Braddock beats Max Baer in 15 rounds to become World Heavyweight Champion, and the title 'Cinderella Man'. (Cinderella Man)
Saturday 6th July: 14th Dalai Lama, leader of Tibet and bestselling author, is born. (Takster Tibet - Kundun)
Thursday 15th August: Will Rogers killed in plane crash. (Alaska - Story of Will Rogers, The )
Wednesday 21st August: Benny Goodman performs at the Palomar Theater. (Los Angeles, California - The Benny Goodman Story)
Friday 13th September: Howard Hughes sets world speed record for flying at 352mph. (The Aviator)
German troops reoccupy the Rhineland. (Angela's Ashes)
Alvy Singer born. (Annie Hall)
Rick fights with the Loyalist Spaniards. (Spain - Casablanca)
Clive Candy shoots a Polar Bear. (Labrador - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp)
Indiana Jones races against the Nazis to find the Ark of the Covenant. (Raiders of the Lost Ark)