1928
September 30: Elie Wiesel is born in Sighet, Romania, which later becomes Hungarian territory.
1930
January: Brown-shirted storm troopers murder eight Berlin Jews.
October: Nazis hold 107 seats in the Reichstag, Germany's parliament.
1933
January: Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
March: Hitler rises to dictator and withdraws Germany from the League of Nations. Heinrich Himmler establishes Dachau outside Munich, Germany, as the first Nazi death camp; thousands of Jews are murdered here, some in brutal medical experiments.
April: All Jews working in government jobs or teaching in universities are fired.
July: The Nazi party is formally declared to be the only political party in Germany.
1935
September: Nuremberg Laws revoke Jewish citizenship and ban intermarriage with Gentiles.
1936
October: Germany allies with Italy and Japan.
1937
July: Buchenwald concentration camp begins receiving convoys.
1938
March: Germany controls Austria.
Early Summer: Romanian fascists strip Jews of citizenship.
October: Hitler evicts German Jews from their homes and forces them into ghettos.
November 9-10: Nazis carry out a devastating plan called Kristallnacht (literally, "Crystal Night," or the Night of Broken Glass), which destroys 7500 Jewish-owned stores and synagogues. Jewish children are banned from German schools. Twenty thousand Jews are taken into "protective custody" and sent to concentration camps. Many Jews emigrate.
1939
January: Hitler reveals his intention to annihilate the Jewish race.
March: Hitler captures the remainder of Czechoslovakia.
August: Germany and Russia enter a ten-year non-aggression pact.
September: Germany precipitates World War II by invading Poland.
1940
April: Germany overruns Norway and Denmark. Auschwitz, Poland, becomes a concentration camp.
June: Germany overruns France.
August: Nazis confine Jews to ghettos.
October-November: Romanian Nazis confiscate Jewish homes, farms, and businesses.
1941
January: Nazis massacre 170 Jews in Bucharest.
June: Nazis shoot 212,000 Romanians. Germany attacks Russia.
September: Himmler uses Zyklon B at Auschwitz. Nazis machine-gun more than 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar, near Kiev, Russia.
October 15: Nazis declare Jews outlaws.
December 7: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. Hitler declares war on the United States.
December 8: Chelmo is the first death camp to use mobile annihilation vans.
Late December: Twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel meets Moshe the Beadle.
1942
Late in the year: Moshe the Beadle escapes Gestapo slaughter to warn the Jews in Sighet. Nazis transport 200,000 Jews to Trans-Dniestria, in the southwestern Ukraine. Two-thirds die of hunger and disease; others depart for Palestine.
1943
March: Crematories open at Auschwitz.
April: The Warsaw ghetto rebels against the Nazis.
July: Mussolini's government collapses. Allies pursue Nazis into Italy.
1944
March: Adolf Eichmann supervises the deportation of Hungarian Jews.
April: Nazis arrest Jewish leaders and close synagogues in Sighet. Jews are quarantined. Nazis confiscate valuables and force Sighet Jews to wear the yellow Star of David and ban them from restaurants, cafes, and public transportation.
May 16: All Sighet Jews are forced from their homes and told to line up in the street at 8 A.M. At 1 P.M., the first group departs by train.
Several days later: Elie's family marches to the "little ghetto."
A few days later: The Wiesels join the last group of deportees aboard a railway cattle car.
Late May: The convoy reaches Birkenau, and Elie and Chlomo spend their first night in camp. Summer Guards send Elie and Chlomo to Auschwitz. There, they meet Stein of Antwerp. Elie and Chlomo march to Buna. Elie is tattooed A-7713 on his left arm.
July 20: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg attempts to murder Hitler.
August 25: The Allies liberate Paris.
October 26: Himmler dismantles the Auschwitz crematory.
1945
January: Elie undergoes surgery in the Auschwitz infirmary. Chlomo and Elie run with evacuees to Gleiwitz, where they and others board open cattle cars for a ten-day ride to Buchenwald in central Germany.
January 18: The Red Army liberates Auschwitz.
Late January: Chlomo Wiesel dies in a bunk at Buchenwald.
February: Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin meet at Yalta to discuss the end of the war in Europe. Allied troops reach the Rhine.
April: The resistance launches an attack on Buchenwald's SS. American forces liberate Buchenwald and Dachau. Elie falls ill with food poisoning. Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide in a Berlin bunker.
May: General Jodl signs Germany's surrender to the Allies.
July-August: Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, and Joseph Stalin discuss the denazification of Germany.
1946
The Nuremberg Trials begin to punish war criminals.
1947
Elie Wiesel enters the Sorbonne in Paris.
1948
May 14: Israel proclaims itself an independent, sovereign state.
1952
Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl is published in English.
1955
François Mauriac convinces Elie to write about the Holocaust.
1956
Elie Wiesel comes to the United States.
1960
Night is published in English; it originally appeared in 1958, in French, as La Nuit.
