EVERY LEGEND HAS ITS HISTORIAN

In the case of the Star Wars saga, I'd like to think that the historian in question, or one of the historians in question, is me. My name is Nathan P. Butler, and I . . . am an obsessive Star Wars fan.

I take it you were expecting something else. I could say I'm a high school teacher, a writer, or the head of Rayzur's Edge Audio, but when it comes to the Star Wars Timeline Project, those things aren't major factors. What is a factor is that desperate need to be doing productive things with free time and an overriding need to read as much of the Star Wars saga as possible. In a phrase: dedication (or is it obsession?).

In a sense, all of the hyper-fandom that I've been prone to demonstrate have come to bear fruit in the document you came here for. I won't bore you with the many sordid details of how we came to where we are today with the Star Wars Timeline Gold, but to put it in a nutshell:

In late 1997, I created a 4-page MS Works document listing all of the major Star Wars materials up to that point in chronological order for my own use while reading the Official Continuity. After several friends asked for copies and I came to run a now-defunct Star Wars online fan club, I revamped the document into The Star Wars Timeline 1.0 and released it via email to friends and club members. Over the past few years, the original document that contained only a title listing has grown into a document of over 1,200 pages contained in one Primary and one Supplemental file, which now include events, summaries, the Official Continuity, the four Canonical Timelines, dozens of alternate reality "Apocryphal" Timelines, and more. I am both happily surprised and proud to say that the SWT, now called The Star Wars Timeline Gold has surpassed all of my expectations to become one of the most complete, accurate, and well-respected chronologies of the Star Wars saga on the Internet. (The thing even helped land me a gig writing for Star Wars Tales in 2004. Imagine that!)

This website is the official home for the Star Wars Timeline Gold document. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

--Nathan P. Butler