1785
The Times (then called The Daily Universal Register) was first published on January 1.

1788
The Daily Universal Register becomes The Times.

1806
The paper carried its first illustration - Nelson's funeral.

1807
The first staff foreign correspondent, Henry Crabb Robinson was appointed.

1814
John Walter II secretly installed the first steam press in Printing House Square which was capable of printing 1,100 sheets an hour.

1819
In its coverage of the Peterloo Massacre, The Times abandoned its usually conservative outlook and committed itself to reform.

1822
The first Personal Column was published.

1831
On January 29 1831, The Times published a leader relating to the Reform Bill in which it stated: "Unless the people — the people everywhere — come forward and petition, nay thunder for reform..." However, it was not from that leader that the paper earned the nickname "The Thunderer" but from an article written by Captain Edward Stirling which stated that The Times had "thundered out that article" on the unsatisfactory inquest into the death of Lord Graves which appeared in the paper on February 11, 1830.

1868
Selling 60,000 copies a day, The Times had a circulation three times the total of the whole of the rest of London's daily papers. John Walter III installed the first reel-fed rotary press, which could print 12,000 an hour printing on both sides of the paper.

1874
The new Times building was opened.

1902
The first Times Literary Supplement was published in January.

1908
With The Times selling for 3d while costing 6d to produce, the position of the paper was under threat. Lord Northcliffe came to the rescue and The Times Publishing Company was registered on April 29, the chief proprietors being Lord Northcliffe and Arthur Walter.