1879 Born 14 March at Bahnhofstraße 135, Ulm, Germany
1880 Einstein’s family moves to Munich, where his father founds a firm manufacturing electrical equipment
1888 Enters Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich
1894 Family moves to Italy; Albert stays in Munich, but gets depressed without his family and does not complete his schooling
1895 Albert joins family in Italy; fails entrance exam for the ETH Zurich; moves to Aarau, Switzerland
1896 Obtains diploma from cantonal school in Aarau,which allows him to enrol for the ETH Zurich; relinquishes German citizenship
1900 Receives diploma from Zurich, scoring 5 (out of a possible 6) for theoretical physics, experimental physics and astronomy, and 5.5 for theory of functions

Life after college
1901 Becomes a Swiss citizen, but declared unfit for military service due to flat feet and varicose veins; gets a few temporary schoolteaching jobs
1902 Appointed technical expert (third class) at the patent office in Bern with a salary of SwFr 3500; fiancée Mileva Maric´ – a fellow student from Zurich – gives birth to illegitimate daughter Lieserl
1903 Marries Mileva on 6 January
1904 First son, Hans Albert, born 14 May
1905 Einstein’s annus mirabilis: submits PhD thesis on molecular dimensions to University of Zurich, as well as two papers on special relativity, one on quantum theory and another on Brownian motion to Annalen der Physik
1906 Promoted to technical expert (second class), salary raised to SwFr 4500
1907 Einstein has “the happiest thought of my life” – that a gravitational field is equivalent to acceleration

Turning professional
1909 Resigns from patent office and starts work as associate professor at University of Zurich on 15 October
1910 Second son, Eduard, born 28 July
1911 Appointed full professor at the German University of Prague,where he works out that the bending of light should be detectable during a solar eclipse; attends first Solvay Congress in Brussels
1912 Returns to Switzerland as professor at the ETH Zurich
1914 Becomes professor at the University of Berlin; moves into a bachelor apartment after separating from Mileva,who returns with sons to Zurich
1915 Completes theory of general relativity; co-signs an anti-war manifesto urging people to join a “League of Europeans”
1916 Writes 10 papers, including first paper on gravitational waves, and one on the spontaneous and stimulated emission of light; publishes The Origins of the General Theory of Relativity; succeeds Max Planck as president of the German Physical Society
1917 Becomes founding director of Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut, Berlin; writes paper on the twin paradox; introduces the cosmological constant; overwork triggers liver problem, stomach ulcer and jaundice that together confine him to bed for several months – looked after by his cousin Elsa Einstein Löwenthal

Public fame
1919 Marries Elsa on 2 June; divorce settlement with Mileva stipulates that she would receive any Nobel-prize money from Einstein; eclipse watchers confirm his prediction that the Sun bends distant starlight, leading to headlines around the world
1920 Toys with leaving Germany after attacks on relativity by anti-semites
1921 Visits the US for first time
1922 Awarded 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his “services to theoretical physics and in particular for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect” – prize money of about $32 000 given to Mileva; completes first paper on unified field theory
1924 Einstein Institute founded in Potsdam; predicts Bose–Einstein condensation
1927 Attends fifth Solvay Congress in Brussels and starts debate on quantum theory with Niels Bohr Life in the US
1933 Leaves Germany after Nazis take power and joins the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton – a “quaint and ceremonious village of demigods on stilts”; rejects cosmological constant
1935 Publishes strident attack on quantum theory with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen
1936 Elsa dies
1939 Signs letter to President Roosevelt warning of dangers of atomic bomb
1940 Becomes US citizen,while retaining Swiss citizenship
1944 Retires from Princeton, aged 65; writes out by hand his original
1905 paper on special relativity for auction, raising $6m for US war effort
1946 Becomes chairman of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists; calls for world government to be formed
1952 Turns down an offer to be President of Israel
1955 Signs “Russell–Einstein manifesto” on 11 April urging nations to renounce nuclear weapons; dies in Princeton at 1.10 a.m. on 18 April from ruptured abdominal aorta; brain removed by pathologist Thomas Harvey; body cremated at the Ewing Crematorium