The Timeline — Every Case, Chronologically | The Backtrack Vault

THE LADY OF THE VAULT

The full chronological list

Most of what gets published about history is organized by when it was written, not when it happened. This list does the opposite: every file in the archive, in the order the events themselves unfolded - from the earliest buried ziggurat to the most recent cold case. Click any title to open the full file, sources and all.

5000 BCE – 1970 CE

5000 BCE – 1970 CE Trepanation: The Evidence for Ancient Skull Surgery Lost civilizations

604 BCE – 562 BCE

604 BCE – 562 BCE The Tower of Babel: Myth, Monument, or Memory? Lost civilizations

220 BCE – 60 BCE

220 BCE – 210 BCE The tomb of Qin Shi Huang: what’s still sealed underground Lost civilizations 100 BCE – 60 BCE The Antikythera Mechanism: Ancient Eclipse Predictor Lost civilizations

609 CE – 1185 CE

609 CE – 1955 CE The History of Halloween: From Samhain to Trick-or-Treat Mythology 1161 CE – 1185 CE Baldwin IV: The Leper King Who Stopped Saladin Forgotten figures 1180 CE – 1185 CE Boudica, Khutulun & Tomoe Gozen: Warriors Forgotten Forgotten figures

1400 CE – 1950 CE

1400 CE – 1600 CE The Origin of El Dorado: From Gilded Man to City of Gold Lost civilizations 1450 CE – 1700 CE The Witch Next Door: How Fear Condemned Neighbors Unsolved mysteries 1500 CE – 1910 CE Corpse Medicine in Europe: Why People Ate Mummies and Skulls Forbidden discoveries 1650 CE – 1730 CE Why Did Pirates Wear Earrings? What the Evidence Shows Mythology 1740 CE – 1905 CE Victorian Safety Coffins and the Fear of Being Buried Alive Unsolved mysteries 1800 CE – 1820 CE Jean Lafitte: The Smuggler Who Built a Swamp Empire Forgotten figures 1800 CE – 1899 CE Victorian Mummy Unwrapping Parties: What Really Happened Forbidden discoveries 1858 CE – 1875 CE The Great Stink of 1858: How London’s Sewage Crisis Was Solved Forgotten figures 1900 CE – 1950 CE Radioactive Consumer Products: The History of the Radium Craze Historical Cover-ups

ABOUT THIS TIMELINE

This timeline exists because most history content online is organized by publish date, not by when things actually happened. That makes it hard to see how far apart — or how close together — different cases really are. A tomb sealed in 210 BCE and a farmhouse murder in 1922 aren't just different stories; they're separated by over two thousand years, and that distance is easy to lose when everything is presented as a scrolling feed of videos.

Every point above links to a full case file with sources, context, and the details that didn't make it into the video. New cases are added to this page automatically as they're published — there's nothing to refresh or maintain by hand.

QUESTIONS

What's the oldest case in the archive?
Currently the Tower of Babel, dated to roughly the 7th century BCE — though that will change as older cases get added.

How is the timeline different from the category pages?
Category pages group cases by subject (lost civilizations, cover-ups, and so on). This page ignores subject entirely and sorts purely by when the event happened — a case from any category can end up next to any other.

Why do some cases show a range of years instead of one date?
Some events unfolded over years or decades rather than a single moment — a smuggling operation, a corporate cover-up, a myth's supposed setting. Where that's true, the timeline shows the full span rather than picking one arbitrary date.