How to put events in order

Step 1. Gather each dated item with its source

Start with a table, not a narrative. Qatar's international court asks for at least four columns, from left to right: Date, Facts or Event, Disputes, and E-Bundle reference ⁵. New Zealand's High Court requires each chronology entry to link to the documents that support it ⁶.

Include key events, not every event. New Zealand's Ministry of Justice describes a chronology as outlining the key events and facts a party intends to establish ⁶. Qatar's guidance says it should be no longer than is necessary ⁵.

Step 2. Record how precise each date is

A letter dated to the day and a memory placed in a season are not equal. The Extended Date/Time Format lets a record say so. A question mark marks a date as uncertain, a tilde marks it as approximate, and a percent sign marks both ². An X can stand for an unspecified digit, and a double dot marks an open start or end ².

When two events share a month but one has no day, keep them apart in the table rather than guessing a day. EDTF records 2004-06 as a month value without a day ².

Step 3. Put machine times on one clock

RFC 3339 says interoperability is best achieved by using Coordinated Universal Time ³. A time with an offset, such as 1996-12-19T16:39:57-08:00, is the same instant as 1996-12-20T00:39:57Z ³. The calendar date changes, so convert before sorting.

Where the local offset is unknown, RFC 3339 allows -00:00 to say so ³. Mark such entries in the table instead of assuming a zone.

Step 4. Test the dates before relying on them

• Copy dates. NIST says copying a file to a system sets its creation time to the copy time ⁴.
• Clock errors. NIST says a computer clock may be incorrect or not synchronised with an authoritative time source ⁴.
• Missing detail. Some recorded times omit seconds or minutes ⁴.
• Alteration. NIST says an attacker may have altered recorded file times ⁴.
• Correlation. NIST notes that analysis often means correlating data among multiple sources ⁴.

Step 5. Separate the event from when it was known

Many legal clocks start from knowledge, not from the event. Under the GDPR, the 72-hour notice period starts when a controller becomes aware of a breach, which the EDPB ties to a reasonable degree of certainty that personal data was compromised ⁷. A chronology that holds only the breach date cannot show whether notice was in time.

Give each a separate row. The event, the first alert, and the point of awareness ⁷.

Step 6. Date the law as well as the facts

The rule that applied on a date may differ from today's text. legislation.gov.uk publishes an as enacted version shortly after enactment and a Latest Available (Revised) version that incorporates amendments made by later legislation ¹.

An Act may come into force immediately, on a specific future date, or in stages ¹. The site says its enacted versions do not give information about commencement, and unapplied effects are flagged in a Changes to Legislation banner ¹. Record the version and commencement date used for each rule in the chronology.

Step 7. Mark what is agreed and what is disputed

Qatar's guidance says disagreements should be shown in neutral terms with the competing versions shortly stated ⁵. New Zealand's merged chronology shows which entries are agreed and which are disputed ⁶. A public inquiry panel sets out findings of fact but has no power to determine civil or criminal liability under the UK Inquiries Act 2005 ⁸.