c1700 million BC :

Earth cools. Scotland's oldest rocks form in great upheavals. Lewisian Gneiss is oldest, one of the oldest rocks in the world, nearly 2000 million years old; other rocks like Torridonian Sandstone (600 million years), Quartzite, Schist, Granite follow. Relatively young volcanic rocks (80-50 million years old) like Skye's Basalt and Gabbro form. The first creatures and trees flourish, then die to form fossils, oil and coal. Tectonic plates move Scotland's rocks from the tropics to the colder north. Ice ages come and go in the last million years or so, gouging the landscape.

7-6000BC :

First verified humans - nomad hunters following retreating glaciers after the last ice age. Britain becomes an island due to rising sea levels around 5500BC.

4-3000BC :

Agriculture introduced to Britain. Stone circles built by unknown peoples; Skara Brae stone village built. Climate warmer than now.

2000BC :

First metalwork introduced: Bronze Age begins.

500BC :

Iron Age: fortified duns built, climate cooler than now. The Celts - fearless, woad-painted, mustachioed warriors, with a love of jewellery and a disdain of death, settle across Britain from Europe.

AD1 :

Brochs built; Pictish Celts established in north with unique artworks. Across Britain, Welsh is probably the most common language.

AD84 :

Romans, better organised than Celts, come to Scotland; defeat tribes at 'Mons Graupius'; no permanent Roman establishments.

AD122 :

Hadrian's Wall (in what is now N England) built by Romans to contain northern tribes.

AD142 :

Antonine Wall built in central Scotland by Romans; northernmost limit of Roman Empire; overrun and finally abandoned in 197.

AD410 :

Romans leave Britain, and the 'Dark Ages' - a time of immigrant races - begins.

AD500 :

Gaelic Scots from Ireland settle in Dalriata (now known as Argyll). Saxons, Angles, Jutes settle in what is now England, all putting pressure on earlier Welsh-speaking British settlers.

cAD380 :

Christianity introduced to Scotland by St Ninian.

cAD432 :

St Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, leaves his native Strathclyde to preach in Ireland.

AD563 :

St Columba comes from Ireland to Iona, and organises Scotland's most important early church.

cAD600 :

St Kentigern founds religous community at Glasgow.

685 :

In the competition for territory in Britain, the Angles reach their zenith, taking Lothian; but are defeated by the Picts at the Battle of at Dunnichen.

cAD835 :

Viking raids in progress along coasts. Later, vikings settle, in the islands and far north, as well as much of what is now northern England.

AD843 :

Thanks to a Viking assasination of the Pictish king, Dalriatan chief Kenneth MacAlpine seizes the crown in Perth as first king of Scotland, uniting Picts and Scots. Much of southern Scotland remains under different rule, with Wesh-speaking Britons in the west and English-speaking Angles in the east.

AD900 :

Pictish-Scots king Constantine of Alba defeats Vikings through intermarriage and diplomacy, and sees off attack by Anglo-Saxon king Æthelstan, although subsequently is unable to capture England for himself.

AD940 :

England fully united, and English king claims all of Britain, gifting Strathclyde (SW Scotland and Cumbria) to Scots king in return for homage.

1018 :

Scots invade and defeat English at Carham, winning Lothian and Borders, but later lose Cumbria.

1070 :

Malcolm III marries English Queen Margaret, a refugee from the French-speaking Norman invasion. Strong English influence on country, and Malcolm admires the Norman system of government in England. Normans invited to settle on Malcolm's terms, and feudal system begins.

12th c :

Feudal system established in South and East Scotland, clan system continues in North and West; In S and E royal Burghs are formed by David I, abbeys and cathedrals built; the northern variant of English becomes official court language, replacing Gaelic; vigorous trade with Low Countries.

1173 :

William I invades England to try to gain control of N England; defeated, ransomed by Richard Lionhart in 1188 to finance crusade. Finally, in 1237, the border wars between the burgeoning English and Scottish states end with the border finally (almost), and peacefully, agreed upon.

1263 :

Scots defeat Norse at Largs, and gain control of Western Isles, albeit nominally: but the Lord of the Isles rules from Lewis to Man in the manner of an independent kingdom. The Lord of the Isles is a descendant of both Norse and Gaelic stock, counting amongst his ancestors the legendary warlord Somerled. Scots scholars study at Oxford University and merchants trade freely with Europe.

1286 :

On a stormy night riding out to his wife, Alexander III dies in an accident, and his successor dies soon after; and a prosperous period of history ends as warlord Edward I of England - who defeats Wales and claims France, also claims Scotland - thus beginning the 'Wars of Independence'.

1295 :

Edward I's puppet king Balliol rebels, signs alliance with France against England: Edward invades, destroying Berwick (then the most prosperous burgh) and introducing martial rule to Scotland.

1297 :

Commoner William Wallace raises popular army to defeat English at Stirling Bridge, and requests that European trading partners reopen their business with Scotland.

1298 :

Edward I returns from wars in France with main army to defeat Wallace at Falkirk. Wallace goes into hiding until betrayed and exected in 1305. Many Scots aristocrats hold estates in England, which compromises their loyalties.

1306 :

Robert the Bruce claims Scotland but, defeated at Methven, flees to Ireland; the mythical legend of 'Bruce and the Spider'

1307 :

Robert the Bruce returns to conduct guerilla warfare against English forces, and slowly regains all of Scotland. Edward I dies in 1310 to be replaced with his less effective son.

1314 :

Edward II of England invades Scotland with main army and is comprehensively defeated at Bannockburn, Scotland's finest military victory. Scots armies rampage unhindered throughout the north of England. The Declaration of Arbroath, a letter to the Pope, is signed in 1320 to contest England's continuing claim to own Scotland.

1329 :

Robert the Bruce dies. Edward III of England resumes wars against Scotland. State of hostile stalemate between Scotland and England for next 300 years.

1371 :

Stewart (Jacobite) dynasty founded. Scotland cursed by kings dying young, power-hungry aristocrats, war with England, and weak rule.

1411 :

Gaelic Lord of the Isles defeated at Harlaw. Scots kings over next 100 years eventually defeat Lords of the Isles permanently, but leave a power vaccuum in the rugged Highlands, leading to inter-tribal clan warfare. In the same year, St Andrews University is founded, as Scots scholars are barred by war from the universities of England, and have had to face the sea voyage to reach universities in France or the Low Countries.

1469 :

Orkney and Shetland pawned to Scotland as payment for a royal marriage dowry from Norway. Norway never pays the buyback price, leaving Scotland now in the form it is today. Meanwhile, Shetland under influence of Hanseatic League.

1503 :

James IV - the last monarch to speak Gaelic - marries an English princess, enabling their descendants to someday rule the whole of Britain. The marriage of the 'Thistle and the Rose.' The Rennaissance reaches Scotland with improvements in palace architecture, arts, courtly and spiritual music.

1513 :

Despite being a generally good ruler, James IV foolishly invades England at the request of France, and is disasterously defeated and killed at Flodden.

1528:

James V, who became king as an infant on James IV's death and was held prisoner by ambitious nobles, finally escapes from his captors to rule Scotland as a man, treating both his former captors and Protestant heretics without mercy. He marries Marie de Guise of France, meaning that his descendants can potentially claim the throne of France as well as of England and Scotland.

1546 :

Protestant reformation sweeps across lowland Scotland, and the hugely influential ultra-presbyterian John Knox becomes Scotland's spiritual leader. Calvanists ban or disapprove of holidays, gaiety, music; but the emphasis on a personal relationship with the Scriptures, aided by the invention of the printing press, creates a highly literate and inquisitive population.

1561 :

Mary Stewart (Mary, Queen of Scots) - a Catholic - returns from an upbringing in France to rule a now Protestant country. Throughout Mary's childhood, Scotland has been ruled by the French Queen, Marie de Guise, and has started to turn away from the 'Auld Alliance' due to this unwanted strong French and Catholic influence on Scottish politics. Mary attempts to reconcile opposing forces in Scotland whilst keeping in mind the thought of some day succeeding to the English and French thrones, but the task is beyond her. She is forced to wage a number of battles but is eventually defeated in war and flees in 1568 to England.

1587 :

Mary has held hopes of returning someday to Scotland, but no plan satisfies all interested parties and she remains in captivity. Her claim to the throne of England is supported by disaffected English lords, and she is executed by her sister, Elizabeth I of England, due to becoming embroiled in English Catholic plots against Elizabeth. Scotland gets its third infant monarch in a row, Mary's son, James VI.

1603 :

James VI becomes king of England and Wales on Elizabeth's death, thus fulfilling the destiny of the 'Thistle and the Rose.' Wars between England and Scotland stop, and the border country is pacified. The English have been trying to rule Ireland for centuries without much success. James has Scottish protestants settle in Northern Ireland as a partial solution, and they oppress the native Catholics. Scots also settle along the Baltic in small trading communities. They become as successful as the Jews, and are persecuted in similar manner.

1638 :

James' son, the episcopalian King Charles I, alienates the presbyterian population by attempting to standardise religious practices across largely episcopalian England and largely presbyterian Scotland. (Both dislike Catholics, especialy the presbyterians). Presbyterian National Covenant against religious change is founded. Covenanters persecuted and executed by the government. Many Scots leave to fight as mercenaries in the various wars across Europe.

1642 :

English civil war. The puritan English parliament - aided by the Scottish Covenanters - revolts against the king, until the parliament's leader, Oliver Cromwell, has Charles I executed. Although the Covenanters had been persecuted by Charles, they still wanted to keep the monarchy.

1650 :

Covenanters thus switch support to royalists; Cromwell invades and defeats Scots at Dunbar. Marquis of Montrose, the monarchy's best general, defeated and captured.

1651 :

Cromwell rules England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland for 10 years with Puritan Commonwealth.

1660

On Cromwell's death, Charles II returns from exile, interfering with government against the popular will of the people like his father before him, causing further wars.

1685 :

James VII succeeds Charles II, and attempts to force Catholicism on a now decidedly Protestant Britain. English parliament invites Protestant William of Orange over from Holland to be the new British king. Jacobites (episcopalian and Catholic supporters of James VII and the Stuart dynasty) in Scotland resist, but their leader Viscount Graham of Dundee is killed at Killiecrankie. Battles between competing religions and self-interested dynasties wage across Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

1692 :

William remains unpopular in the Highlands, and he decides to make an example to the clans who refuse to sign an oath of loyalty to him by ordering the murder of the MacIan clan in Glencoe. There is a general outcry, and attitudes against William harden in the Highlands, the Jacobite empathy strengthened.

1698 :

Seeing the success of the Dutch, English, Spanish and Portuguese in forming colonies abroad, barred from trading with England's American colonies, and discriminated against in mainland Europe, Scotland attempts her only foreign colony, at Darien in Panama's highly strategic but malaria infested swamps. Like Holland or Sweden, Scotland does not have the population to mass colonise an area, and chooses Darien for its potential to become a trading post like Macau, Cape Town or Singapore. Other European powers, including Spain and England, are hostile and the settlement - funded by a wave of mass donations by the public (encouraged by William Paterson, the Scot who founded the Bank of England) - falls to attack and disease.

1707 :

Although in the 17thc - despite various complicated religious and dynastic conflicts - there is nominally no more war between Scotland and England, English merchants still successfully lobby their parliament to hamper Scotland's attempts to trade abroad. Equally, unofficial bands of Scots merchants undercut English in transatlantic trade through a significant black market. Encouraged by the monarchy and aristocracy - if unwanted by the common people on either side - the English and Scottish parliaments vote to disband themselves and form a new British parliament, based in Westminster in London. The practical effect is not of a new parliament being formed, but the absorption of the Scots parliament by the larger English one. Scots aristocrats enthusiastically start to move south, attracted by the greater riches and easier life on offer.

1715 :

The son of James VII attempts to win back the British throne for the Jacobite dynasty by raising an army, but popular support is not forthcoming and he escapes to France.

1745 :

The grandson of James VII, Charles Edward Stewart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), attempts to win back the throne for his father by raising an army in the Highlands. He initially enjoys more success than his father, despite even less support across the country - marching on London with his small army of Highlanders as far as Derby - only to retreat due to the lack of support en route, to be decisevely defeated at Culloden in 1746.

1746 :

After Culloden the government decides to pacify the Highlands once and for all, and builds roads and forts all over the Highlands. Highlanders are banned from many of their traditional practices, but are later permitted them back, if they join the British army. Finally, the British have managed to do what the Lowland Scots never quite managed - bring the Highlands under their control. Depopulation accelerates and is actively encouraged, and Highlanders find themselves pioneers in Canada, America, Australia and New Zealand, with emigration becoming a keynote experience for much of Scotland over the next 200 years. Meanwhile, Lowland merchants thrive on peace and trade with the Americas and grow rich on the backs of American slaves. The East India Company is formed to exploit trade in India.

1776 :

Abandonded by her absentee aristocrats, full of highly educated and hard-working people, no longer a Jacobite threat to the British state, and left to her own devices in a way that had never happened before; Scotland starts to transform. For a few short years, Edinburgh becomes the world's most important centre of culture and philosophy, in the 'Scottish Enlightenment.' James Watt in Glasgow invents the practical steam engine. Adam Smith from Kirkcaldy writes his treatise on the Wealth of Nations, Hume his philosophies and Burns his poems. Agricultural pioneers bring a new scientific approach to farming, increasing productivity to feed a growing population. Meanwhile America wins Independence from Britain - using a document drafted by Witherspoon with echoes of the Declaration of Arbroath and signed by two Scots. John Paul Jones founds the US Navy, and Peter the Great appoints another Scot, Samuel Greig, to run the Russian Navy. Needless to say however, Scots fight in the largest numbers for, and with remarkable loyalty to, the British state.

1790 :

The French Revolution rings alarm bells for monarchies all over Europe, with fledgeling democratic or republican movements brutally crushed across Britain. Change towards democracy in Britain occurs over the next 130 years but is slow. Pro-republicans are executed or exiled to Australia.

1800 :

Napoleon in France attempts to conquer Europe. Britain pulls together preparing for an expected invasion, but this does not occur. Napoleon invades Russia and is defeated. Napoleon's final defeat occurs in 1815 at Waterloo, at which point British patriotism is at its zenith. With Napoleon gone, the opportunity for Britain to become an unopposed global superpower becomes reality.

c1820 :

With the coming of the railways and industrialsation, and the romanticisation of the Highlands by the likes of Walter Scott, mass tourism first occurs in Scotland, along the lowland coasts and in the Trossachs. Britain expands her influence abroad, forming or consolidating colonies in China, India and Africa. Meanwhile others, like Lord Byron or Admiral Thomas Cochrane, fight for independence movements across the globe, from Chile to Greece.

1850 :

By now Britain is the world's greatest power, and Christian missionaries pave the way for rapacious traders in Africa. Highland and Irish immigrants flood to cities like Glasgow, brought by famine and punitive government policies. Catholic Irish immigrants in particular experience hostility, although a re-evangelised Britain fights the slave trade. The British are in frequent wars over colonies with other European powers, and Glasgow becomes one of the greatest - if not the greatest - industrial cities in the world.

1883 :

Clashes between locals and police and troops in the Western Highlands and Islands over land issues brings government inspectors to the Highlands for the first time in many years. They are shocked at the medieaval conditions people are living under, and the Crofter's Act is passed, giving people in the Highlands more rights. Scotland gets her own minister in government; and the Labour party, a socialist movement dedicated to representing the millions of ordinary and dispossesed people who have not shared in Britain's great prosperity, is formed in Glasgow. Home rule (devolution) is considered by the ruling Liberals, but the Scots are uncomfortable with its connotations of disloyalty as the same term is used by Irish political activists - who want complete independence from Britain.

1900 :

The British are unseated from China in the Boxer revolution, and have a close scare in the Boer War in South Africa. Meanwhile Germany, which has been recently united under Bismark, is jealous of Britain and France's large empires and starts an arms race.

1901 :

Queen Victoria dies. In 1912, the Titanic, the world's largest ship, sinks on her maiden voyage, taking with her many rich and influential people. In some ways, the sinking of the Titanic signals an end to the confidence and power which characterised Britain during the Industrial and Victorian era.

1914 :

The European Great Powers are itching for a fight, and on a series of initially trivial but quickly escalating reasons, Britain and France go to war with Germany and Austro-Hungary, involving their colonies and eventually the USA as well. So many young men die that it is claimed that it must be 'The War to End All Wars' and the United Nations is set up in 1919. Due to the popularity of soldiering, a dispropportionately large number of men from Scotland are killed, badly affecting the country; nowhere more so than the Highlands, whose denuded glens, formed into vast sporting estates for the sole amusement of the rich, reach a nadir.

1916 :

Oppressed for centuries by England then Britain, Ireland rebels again and finally wins freedom. Plans for Home Rule in Scotland are dropped or defeated under a wave of pro-British patriotism. Confidence in Scottish identity, which has been rising all the time during the Victorian era, ebbs again over the next 50 years as Britain comes under attack both physically and philosophically from Europe, USA and a disintegrating Empire.

1925 :

A great economic depression occurs all over Europe and indeed the world, with communism seeming like a possible solution to many; and fascism, a possible solution to many others. The workers of Scotland plump for the former. Tanks roll down the streets of Glasgow as the government - who have already lost Ireland - falsely fear a bolshevik style workers' revolution. Germany is the worst hit by the depression, thanks in part to punitive conditions imposed at Versailles by the victors after the 1914-1918 war, and the Germans vote the nazis instead of communists to power, who offer the seductive but ultimately false prospect of jobs, rearmament, and self respect for Germany.

1939 :

The Germans under Hitler have rearmed and fought in Spain and invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia. Finally, when they invade Poland, Britain and France declare war on Germany for the second time in 25 years.

1940 :

European countries are unprepared for the new German style of warfare and by 1941 all of non-neutral Europe except Britain is under German control or friendship. Germany invades the Soviet Union, which has the same effect on them as it did on Napoleon 130 years earlier. Eventually, with the entry of the USA against Germany, the outcome of the war is sealed.

1947 :

Despite being on the victorious side in the Second World War, Britain is exhausted. Militarily, the USA and the Soviet Union become the new world powers, and the shattered economies of Germany and Japan are rebuilt from scratch with the latest technologies and practices thanks to the determination of the victors to avoid the mistakes of the Treaty of Versailles. Britain begins a slow and comparatively graceful withdrawl from its colonies, with the most important, India, becoming independent along with Pakistan in 1947. The Scottish National Party, formed in 1934 with the agenda of an independent Scotland, has its first electoral victory in 1945 - the same year that the Labour movement finally gains power and creates the welfare state. From now on, British politics becomes dominated by a battle between Conservative and Labour, and Liberals are marginalised.

1960s :

The SS Windrush lands the first Carribean immigrants in 1948, and more people migrate to Britain over the following decades, especially from the former empire. London remains a globally significant city, becoming truly multicultural, although the rest of Britain shrinks in influence by comparison, almost in proportion to the diminishing empire. However, free healthcare and education and cheap, centrally planned modern housing give many the chance to enjoy a physical quality of life previously unknown to ordinary people. In Northern Ireland, ancient catholic and protestant animosity caused by the opression of Catholics by the Protestant population spills over into violence, with echoes felt strongly in Scotland.

1979 :

At the same time as the world's most important mineral - oil - is discovered off the Scottish coast, the UK Treasury has to be bailed out by the World Bank thanks to problems precipitated by the Arab oil crisis of 1973. The Scottish National Party grows in popularity, forcing a referendum on devolution in 1979. However the Scots, bedevilled by self doubt and apathy - some of it deliberately engendered by the politicians and media of the time, who feared Scottish independence when a bankrupt UK depended heavily on North Sea oil - fail to gain a devolved parliament in a referendum. The Conservatives remain unpopular in Scotland and feeling hardens over the next 15 years against the British government led by Margaret Thatcher. Scottish folk culture, for much of the 20thc seen as kitch, uncool, and the preserve of oddballs and historians, becomes more popular again with younger people.

1997 :

During the Thatcher years, the demand for more accountability becomes unstoppable, and Labour promise devolution if they come to power. They do so, and Scots vote emphatically for a devolved parliament in a second referendum. The English begin the journey of gaining a sense of their own non-British identity, and English sentiment against Scotland hardens and becomes more defensive. In the future, English nationalism may become a powerful minority force within England towards further constitutional change.

2007 :

The Scottish National Party gains power for the first time. Scotland is ruled at Holyrood by a minority SNP government and enters unchartered waters.

2010 :

No one knows the future for Scotland. However, barring a cataclysm, a prediction can be confidently made for the near future. Whilst not necessarily becoming imminently independent, Scotland will surely soon gain fiscal autonomy - driven not just by public opinion and the growing confidence of the members of the Scottish Parliament, but also by the debatable perception that Scotland gets more than her fair share of UK money. Tensions already existed between a Labour government in the Scottish Parliament and a Labour government in the UK Parliament: with changes in these parties, tensions between the two might easily become insurmountable.

At present, Scottish civic society is midway through the long journey from a confidence-lacking, post-industrial victimhood mentality - where only the Scots who left were seen to truly flourish, and were called traitors for leaving the basket of crabs as a result - to the more robust, egg-breaking, omlette-making independent confidence of our Victorian forebears, tempered with a more democratic and equal-minded 21st century spirit. Let us hope that whatever happens, the journey goes rapidly and fairly and with more humour than pain; and that a new, happy chapter in Scotland's story is soon begun.