The popularity of the Back to the Future film trilogy is due in part to the detailed and believable local history of the fictitious city of Hill Valley and the genealogies of its residents.
Everything in this timeline is either seen in the films (or on newspapers seen in the films), in the novels, in the screenplays, or said by the Bobs (director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis and producer/co-writer Bob Gale). In addition, a couple of dates (Verne's birthdate and Clara's birth year) have been concluded from the animated series, although whether or not that information is canon is subject to dispute by fans. Information from fan fiction is not included.
Events taking place in the alternate timeline seen in Back to the Future Part II, are in italics.1850s
1860s
- 1861
- *Dates unknown: The earliest of Doc's emergency money is printed.
- 1865
- *Tuesday, September 5: Hill Valley becomes a city.
- 1866
- *Date unknown: Eleven-year-old Clara comes down with diphtheria and is quarantined for three months. As a result, her father places a telescope next to her bed for her to use, which sparks her lifelong interest in astronomy and science.
1870s
1880s
- 1880
- *Date unknown: Around this year Seamus McFly, his wife Maggie McFly and his brother Martin emigrate from Ireland to the United States. Based on Seamus saying that his brother was stabbed in Virginia City, the McFlys might have taken a few years to get to California, settling in a few other places along the way.
- 1884
- *Date unknown: Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen shoots twelve men, not including Indians or Chinamen, before the end of this year according to a newspaper article. The article has no follow-ups because Tannen killed its editor.
- 1885
- *Thursday, January 1: Dr. Emmett Brown (of 1985) arrives from 1955. He sets up as a blacksmith in Hill Valley. (In so doing, Doc may foul up the time line by replacing another blacksmith or stealing business from other blacksmiths in town or other towns - however, it is possible that there would have been no blacksmith at all if Doc were not there.)
- *April: William Sean McFly born, first son to Seamus and Maggie McFly and the first McFly born in America.
- *Saturday, July 4: Doc passes out after drinking one shot of whiskey at the 4th of July celebrations.
- *Saturday, August 29: There is a meeting of the townspeople over who will pick up the new schoolteacher on the 4th. Originally, no one volunteers. In the timeline with Doc there, he volunteers; and in the timeline without Marty, he picks her up.
- *Tuesday, September 1: Doc buries the broken DeLorean time machine in the Delgado mine and writes a letter to Marty McFly, currently stranded in 1955.
- *Wednesday, September 2: Marty McFly arrives in 1885 to rescue Doc and accidentally rips the fuel line in the time machine. He later meets his ancestors Seamus and Maggie McFly.
- *Thursday, September 3: Marty runs into Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, great grandfather of Biff Tannen, and upsets him, causing Tannen to nearly hang Marty (going under the name "Clint Eastwood"). Doc saves Marty in time.
- *Friday, September 4: Doc tries repairing the DeLorean, and accidentally saves the life of Clara Clayton, who was supposed to originally fall into Shonash Ravine (resulting in the name Clayton Ravine until the Doc's picking her up on the 29th prevented that change). It is love at first sight.
- *Saturday, September 5: The Hill Valley festival. Doc and Clara dance. Originally, Buford Tannen shot Doc here, causing him to die two days later, but thanks to "Clint," this is avoided.
- *Sunday, September 6: Doc and Marty prepare to go back to the future. Doc says goodbye to Clara and tells her the truth, but she doesn't believe him.
- *Monday, September 7: Marty has a showdown scheduled with Tannen; Marty and Doc are ready to escape through the back door when Tannen calls Marty "yellow." Marty still decides to not face Tannen, showing an incredible amount of growth from a mere day earlier, and is about to walk away when Tannen's gang gets ahold of Doc and threatens to shoot him. Marty then decides to face Tannen, and survives due to a trick learned from the Clint Eastwood movie A Fistful of Dollars. Meanwhile, Clara, on a train to San Francisco, hears someone talking about a man talking about her, and she stops the train and jumps off to find Doc. She discovers clues at the blacksmith shop and runs to the spur line Doc and Marty are using. Doc and Marty use a train's locomotive to push the DeLorean up to 88 mph toward Shonash Ravine to go back to 1985. Marty goes back to the future, but Doc, who went to Clara's rescue, and Clara are forced to stay behind. Since "Clint" was seen stealing the engine, and is presumed to have gone down with it, he enters the town's folklore as the man who beat Mad Dog Tannen, and Shonash Ravine is renamed Eastwood Ravine.
- *Tuesday, December 15: Doc marries Clara.
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