Timeline/Pre-2011

1962

• Nathan Ingram is born on June 16. ^{(“The High Road”)}

1965

• Grant Whitaker is born. ^{(“Ghosts”)}

August

• Carl Elias is born on August 18. ^{(“Flesh and Blood”)}

1967

• Rachel Whitaker is born. ^{(“Ghosts”)}

1968

March

• Lionel Fusco is born on March 17. ^{(“Title Sequence/Season 2”)}

1969

January

• Harold says:"If they don't want you to get inside, they oughta build it better." while he helps his dad to fix the car on January 25.

1971

March

• Alicia Corwin is born on March 11. ^{(“Super”)}
• Harold makes a simple memory-recording machine.

April

• Peter Arndt is born on April 2. ^{(“Many Happy Returns”)}

1972

March

• Joss Carter is born on March 7. ^{(“Title Sequence/Season 2”)}

1973

• Marlene Elias who's working in Gianni Moretti is killed by Vincent Deluca. And he is killed at his age of 71 with the case pepole Bernie Sullivan.
• John Greer leaves MI6 after exposing his superior as a double agent and killing him. ^{(“The Cold War”)}

1974

• (Approximately) Andrew Benton is born.
• Harold Finch's cases can be traced most at the year, by the time his charge was treason. ^{(“The Day the World Went Away”)}

1976

• The earliest record of Finch was under the alias of Harold Wren.It is later discovered by Fusco under Reese's request.

c. 1978

• Gabrielle Tillman is born.

1979

• Samantha Groves is born. ^{(“Bad Code”)}
• Harold give up to go go Paris and takes care of his father at home. He begins to think about get inside the M.I.T through internet.

1980

• Nathan Ingram starts his BS Computer Science degree at MIT. ^{(“The High Road”)}

October

October 27

• Harold is working with his computer when it catches power and sets on fire. Harold extinguishes the fire and realizes that he needs more power. He hacks into ARPANET to continue powering his machine. Later, his act is exposed and is regarded as treason, so Finch says goodbye to his father, whose Alzheimer’s is even worse, and flees. ^{(“Aletheia”)}

1981

• Elias is mocked at school when he could not finish his family tree. ^{(“Flesh and Blood”)}

August

• On August 11, Harold's Father dies due to Alzheimer's disease. ^{(“B.S.O.D.”)}

1983

• Nathan Ingram leaves MIT with an incomplete degree and starts IFT. ^{(“The High Road”)}

1991

• Matthew Whitaker is born. ^{(“Ghosts”)}
• Elias visits his biological father, Gianni Moretti, and asks to join his crew. Moretti agrees, but arranges his murder. Elias kills the two assassins and adopts the alias of Charlie Burton. ^{(“Flesh and Blood”) (“Witness”)}

April

• On April 15, the night her friend Hanna Frey disappears, Sam Groves first uses her alias Root in the computer game The Oregon Trail. ^{(“Bad Code”)}

1993

January

• John Reese joins the military on January 15, 1993. Over the next nine years, he serves four short and one long tour of duty. ^{(“Title Sequence/Season 1”)}
• Sameen(Shaw) and her father crashed in an accident. The father is dead and the little girl is alive. The fireman who pulled Shaw out of the wreckage, Joseph Kent, later died of multiple myeloma.[1]

1994

• In Ghosts Reese finds out that Finch has been working at IFT for 17 years, so either he has also been a regular employee of IFT as a cover since this year (1994) or this is a contingency error, as during The High Road, the Machine states that Nathan Ingram started IFT in 1983. ^{(“The High Road”)}

1996

• Andrew Benton rapes Gabrielle Tillman.
• Theresa Whitaker is born. ^{(“Ghosts”)}

1997

• Gabrielle Tillman commits suicide by overdose.

1998

September

• Reese possibly attained the rank of Sergeant on September 15, 1998. ^{(“Title Sequence/Season 1”)}

2001

• Samuel Gates, Jr. is born. ^{(“Judgment”)}

September - December

September 11th

• While on vacation with Jessica in Mexico, Reese witnesses the attack on the World Trade Centre on television. ^{(“Pilot”)}

Post September 11th

• The United States government hires Nathan Ingram to build a machine that would predict future mass attacks. ^{(“Pilot”) (“Ghosts”)}
• Reese has achieved the rank of Sergeant First Class and has been in the Army between 9–12 years by the time of the photo with Jessica found by Detective Carter. ^{(“Many Happy Returns”)}
• Finch creates multiple prototypes of The Machine, all unsuitable for different reasons. ^{(“Prophets”)}

2002

January

• January 1 marks the first day of The Machine. ^{(“The Contingency”)}

February

• On February 2, Joss Carter starts her service in Afghanistan as a Lieutenant at Bagram Air Base. ^{(“Title Sequence/Season 1”) (“Get Carter”)}
• On February 16, Finch is testing the capability of the Machine to find him by playing hide and seek. ^{(“The Contingency”)}

June

June 10

• 05:37 - Finch builds an early version of the Machine, while Ingram fires half of IFT's employees. ^{(“Ghosts”)}

November

• John.H(380-00-0050) is retired from the army on November 20.

2003

• Harold teaches the Machine chess, also teaching her strategy, decision making, and to treat each human as equally valuable. ^{(“If-Then-Else”)}

February

• On February 2, Joss Carter finishes her service in Afghanistan, and is relocated to Baghdad, Iraq, where she serves as an investigator at Camp Liberty. ^{(“Title Sequence/Season 1”) (“Get Carter”)}

September

• On September 6, Finch takes The Machine for a 'test run' by going to a casino in Atlantic City and playing blackjack. Early the next morning, as Finch leaves the casino, the Machine saves him from a hit and run accident. ^{(“The Contingency”)}

2004

• The last mark of John serves in the army.
• Lionel Fusco and his wife divorced.

March

• On March 20, Joss Carter finishes her service in Iraq, and is awarded Purple Heart. ^{(“Title Sequence/Season 1”) (“Get Carter”)}

May

• On May 8, Harold Finch shows Nathan Ingram that The Machine is not only identifying outliers in society but also learning human behaviour. Grace Hendricks is picked out by the Machine as an anomaly, but Finch dismisses this as a bug. ^{(“The High Road”)}

2005

• Harold Finch tests The Machine's ability to connect individuals when said individuals do not even know they are connected. Grace Hendricks is flagged by the Machine for a second time, for unknown reasons. ^{(“The High Road”)}

February

• On February 8, Nathan Ingram gives the first number produced by the Machine to Alicia Corwin while Finch watches the meeting. ^{(“Super”) (“The Contingency”)}
• Around two weeks later, Ingram meets with Denton Weeks who confirmed the number was related to a traitor. The Machine recognizes Weeks as a threat. ^{(“Super”)}
• On February 24, the Machine officially goes online. Finch shows Ingram how the Machine identifies threats to national security. The Machine then identifies Ingram as a possible threat. This date was used in the season two finale as the combination to the wall safe in the library.^{(“Super”) (“Wolf and Cub”) (“God Mode”)}
• On February 25, Nathan Ingram sells the Machine to the government for $1. ^{(“Wolf and Cub”)}
  • As a result, Arthur Claypool's Samaritan project is shutdown by the government the same day, ordering its drives to be destroyed. ^{(“Lethe”)} However, Claypool rescues two drives containing the Samaritan project before they are destroyed. ^{(“Aletheia”)}

March

• Lionel Fusco becomes a dirty cop with Stills on March 25.

2006

• Kara Stanton gives John the second name "Reese" after a task nearby the Danube.

January

• Harold Finch gets an ice cream, which is apparently a regular occurrence at this time of year. The Machine sends him a text letting him know that Grace Hendricks is in the area; Finch goes over to her and both say hello. ^{(“The High Road”) (“Many Happy Returns”)}

February

February 12

• 18:12 - Reese runs into Jessica at an airport and learns of her engagement to Peter Arndt. ^{(“Mission Creep”)}

August

• On August 11, Harold decides to implement code in the Machine that would erase its memory, every night at midnight. ^{(“B.S.O.D.”)}

2007

• Ingram learns of the Machine's ability of predicting danger to individuals and confronts Finch. Finch responds that they are protecting everyone, not someone. ^{(“Ghosts”)}
• Jessica's number starts appearing, due to Peter Arndt's physical abuse. ^{(“Ghosts”) (“Many Happy Returns”)}
• Kara Stanton and John Reese finish two tasks of removing spies.
• The trigger happy hobo solves a missing persons case. ^{(“Ghosts”)}

2008

August

August 12th

• 01:37 - A woman is murdered in a hotel room. The machine records the case. Harold Finch plays the tape recording to John Reese for help in 2011. ^{(“Pilot”)}

November

• Reese and Stanton are operating illegally in New York City, holding a government man captive who was responsible for selling software to the Chinese. ^{(“Blue Code”)}
• Reese meets Peter Arndt at a bar and makes conversation with him in order to see Jessica. Stanton however, convinces Reese to leave just as Jessica arrives. ^{(“Blue Code”)}

2009

• The Whitaker family are murdered. ^{(“Ghosts”)}
• Derek and Elizabeth Whitaker are interviewed. ^{(“Ghosts”)}
• John Reese and Kara Stanton remove a pair of spies at Paris.
• Carl Elias is going to be a history teacher at Brighton Beach using the assumed name Charlie Burton.

July

• On July 10, Nathan Ingram meets with Alicia Corwin to confirm transport arrangement for The Machine and slips up on the number of people who know about the Machine, saying eight rather than seven, which he quickly clears up.^{(“No Good Deed”) (“Bad Code”)}
• On July 11, Nathan Ingram encourages Harold Finch to pursue his own relationships, but Harold implies that he already has. Later that evening, Ingram tries to impress upon Finch the need for a contingency option, but his request is denied. ^{(“No Good Deed”) (“Bad Code”)}
• On July 12, at 1:16am, Nathan Ingram secretly inputs a contingency function into the Machine in case the government abuses it. ^{(“No Good Deed”)} Later that day, The Machine is shipped from IFT to its new home. ^{(“No Good Deed”) (“Bad Code”)}

Autumn or Winter

• Nathan Ingram begins to save the irrelevant numbers by himself.

2010

• Derek and Elizabeth Whitaker divorce. ^{(“Ghosts”)}

September

• Harold Martin (the name Grace knows) asks Grace Hendricks to marry him.
• Nathan Ingram dies 9/26/2010 (Day 3191). ^{(“Ghosts”) (“God Mode”)}
• Finch is involved in the same attack that supposedly claimed his life, and caused his back injury. ^{(“Cura Te Ipsum”) (“No Good Deed”) (“God Mode”)}
• Daniel Casey who freelances with various Tiger Teams receives a secret call asking him to test the machine on September 28. He doesn't know what he tests but he steals some code from it.
• Some time after Nathan Ingram's death, Finch attempts to kill Alicia Corwin by rigging an IED under her car, but is convinced otherwise. ^{(“Karma”)}

October - November

• Some time after October 15, 2010, Paul Duncan, under the alias Brent Tomlinson, is killed by Reese and Stanton in Afghanistan. ^{(“Truth Be Told”)}
• Sometime after Nathan Ingram's death Finch hires a man named Rick Dillinger to help him prevent crimes involving the irrelevent numbers from the Machine. ^(“RAM”)

December

• Daniel Casey's number is pulled out by the machine on December 4. He is wanted by Control, the CIA, and Decima Technologies in connection to some code stored on a laptop when he worked on the Machine for the Government. Finch and Mr. Dillinger attempt to help Casey, while CIA agents Reese and Stanton are assigned to kill him. Ultimately, Reese fakes Casey's death and gives him a new identity. Dillinger, angered at Finch for not telling him the true nature of their work, sells the laptop to the Chinese. Dillinger is killed by government agent Sameen Shaw during the transaction. Meanwhile, Control tracks the laptop to Ordos, China and orders the CIA to send Reese and Stanton to retrieve it, but in reality wants it destroyed and the the two agents killed. Greer, the head of Decima, also tracks the laptop to Ordos. ^(“RAM”)
• Reese, Stanton, Snow and Corwin are stationed in Tétouan, Morocco on December 5. Reese receives a voicemail from a distraught Jessica. He calls back, and promises to be with her in 24 hours. ^{(“Matsya Nyaya”)}
• Reese and Stanton are sent to Ordos, China on December 6, where they are to prepare for two weeks to retrieve a laptop that was sold to the Chinese. Reese is instructed to kill Stanton, who supposedly turned on the CIA. In Ordos, they come across a massacre of scientists. ^{(“Matsya Nyaya”)}
• With the software secured, Reese hesitates before killing Stanton, who shoots him instead. She was given the same orders as him. Reese escapes the compound while the CIA bombs it, presumably killing Stanton. ^{(“Matsya Nyaya”)}
• Peter Arndt goes bankrupt and owes Sullivan $3,000,000. His abuse of Jessica results in her death. He stages a car crash to hide the true nature of her injuries. The autopsy report is dated December 7. ^{(“Many Happy Returns”)}