November 28, 1820: Frederick Engels is born in Barmen into the family of a textile manufacturer, Friedrich Engels, and his wife, Elisabeth (née van Haar).

1837-1838: Frederick Engels begins working in his father's office and moves to Bremen to learn commerce

March 1839-March 1841: Engels devotes his leisure to ‘world literature’, philosophy, and history; publishes his ‘Letters from Wuppertal’ and his poems, reviews and essays in various literary periodicals.

September 1841-October 1842: Engels does military service with an artillery brigade in Berlin. In his free time Engels attends lectures in Berlin University as an external student and establishes close ties with the Berlin group of Young Hegelians; he writes and publishes several articles criticising the reactionary views of Friedrich Schelling, idealist philosopher and lecturer at Berlin University.

Spring-December 1842: Engels writes a number of articles for the Rheinische Zeitung, whose chief editor is Karl Marx.

Mid-November 1842: Engels leaves for England to learn commerce at the spinnery of the Ermen & Engels firm in Manchester. On his way to England, Engels stops in Cologne and makes the acquaintance of Marx in the editorial offices of the Rheinische Zeitung.

December 1842-August 1844: Engels studies social and political relations and the life and labour of the English workers, and writes a number of articles for the Rheinische Zeitung. He contacts the leaders of the chartist movement, writes for Chartist periodicals, makes the acquaintance of socialists, followers of the utopian socialist Robert Owen. He also studies works of bourgeois economists, exponents of utopian socialism and communism.

May 1843: Engels makes the acquaintance of the leaders of the League of the Just.

February 1844: Engels' ‘Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy’  appears.

End of August 1844: Engels stays with Marx for ten days in Paris. This is the beginning of their friendship and joint work. In Paris, Engels meets French democrats and socialists; he accepts Marx's proposal to write a joint work criticising the Young Hegelians.

September 1844-March 1845: Engels works on his book, The Condition of the Working Class in England. He conducts revolutionary propaganda in Rhine Province.

End of February 1845: The first joint work of Marx and Engels, The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism Against Bruno Bauer and Company is published.

July 12- August 21, 1845: Marx and Engels visit England to study the latest English books on economics and also to gain insight into England's economic and political life and the English working-class movement.

Autumn of 1845-May 1846: Marx and Engels work on The German Ideology. This becomes an important stage in the elaboration of the theoretical principles of the communist party.

January 1846: Marx and Engels set up a Communist Correspondence Committee in Brussels.

Autumn of 1846: At meeting of German workers in Paris, Engels propagates communist ideas and criticises Proudhon's petty-bourgeois utopias and Karl Grün's ‘true socialist’. As a result of Engels's efforts, most members of the League of the Just, Paris communities departed from ‘true socialism’ and Proudhonism.

January - April 1847: Engels writes an article, ‘The True Socialists’, which becomes part of The German Ideology.

End of January 1847: The London Committee of the League of the Just requests Marx and Engels to join the League, take part in its reorganisation and in drawing up its programme. Marx and Engels become members of the League.

June 2, 1847: Engels takes an active part in the inaugural Congress of the Communist League and helps to draw up the new rules.

End of August 1847: Marx and Engels set up a German Workers' Society in Brussels.

November 29- December 8, 1947: Marx and Engels take an active part in the work of the Second Congress of the Communist League. The Congress approves the League's rules and instructs Marx and Engels to draw up its programme.

December 17, 1847: Engels leaves London for Brussels, Marx and Engels begin writing the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

January 31, 1848: Engels arrives in Brussels after being expelled from Paris for revolutionary activity among the workers.

About February 24, 1848:The Manifesto of the Communist Party, the first programme document of scientific communism, written by Marx and Engels published.

March 11, 1848: Marx is elected chairman of the Central Authority of the Communist League. Engels is appointed member of the Central Authority in his absence.

March 18-19, 1848: Outbreak of revolution in Germany. Barricade fighting in Berlin.

March 21-29, 1848: Marx and Engels write the Demands of the Communist Party in Germany. The Demands is published in the form of leaflets and is distributed together with the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

Early April 1848: Marx, Engels and a group of their comrades-in-arms go to Germany to take direct part in the revolution.

April-May, 1848: Marx and Engels go to Cologne, and start the publication of Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

May-June 1848: The Neue Rheinische Zeitung prints articles on the uprising of the Paris proletariat, most of them by Frederick Engels.

September 13, 1848: The Neue Rheinische Zeitung sponsors a mass meeting in Cologne to organize a rebuff to the counter-revolution. The meeting elects a Committee of Public Safety which includes Marx, Engels and other editors to be the organising centre of the revolutionary struggle.

February 7, 1849: At the trail of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Marx and Engels defend their newspaper as well as freedom of the press in Germany and are acquited.

May 10-15, 1849: On the instructions of the committee of Public Safety Engels supervises the building of fortifications in Elberfeld and insists on arming the workers.

May 19, 1849: The last, farewell issue of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung is printed in red. After its closure Marx and Engels go to Frankfurt am Main and then to South Western Germany where fighting still continues. They do their utmost to give the meet with the incomprehension of its petty-bourgeois leaders.

June 13-July 12, 1849: Engels joins the insurgents Baden-Palatinate army as a volunteer, takes part in planning military operations and fights in four important engagements.

About November 10, 1849: Engels arrives in London and is active in the German Workers’ Educational Society and Social-Democratic Refugee Committee.

March 1850: Marx and Engels write an ‘Address of the Central Authority to the Authority to the League’, summing up the proletariat’s struggle in the revolution and outlining the Communists’ programme of action in the future struggle.

March-November 1850: Marx’s The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850, Engels The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution and The Peasant War in Germany, summing up the results of the 1848-49 revolution are published.

November 1850: Engels moves to Manchester and begins works with the Ermen & Engels firm; this enables him to help the Marx family financially. Engels begins a systematic study of military sciences.

August 1851-March 1862: Engels writes a series of articles for the New York Daily Tribune, entitled Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany and along with Marx, wrote a large number of articles on the national liberation movement, international relations, economics, and politics.

May-June 1853: Engels studies Persian and the history of Oriental countries.

1857: The world is gripped by an economic crisis. In their letter, Marx and Engels exchange information opinion on the crisis in Europe and the USA. They see it as a prologue to a new revolutionary upsurge.

1858: Engels studies natural sciences.

February-March 9, 1859: Engels works on the pamphlet Po and Rhine, exposing Bonapartism and advocating democratic revolutionary ways of unifying both Germany and Italy.

May-August 1859: Marx and Engels contribute to a newspaper of the German Workers’ Educational Society in London. Their articles deal with major question of revolutionary theory and tactics.

December 1859: Engels reads Darwin’s On the Origin of Speech.

April 1861-April 1865: Engels writes a number of articles about the struggle of North and South in the US Civil War.

September 28, 1864: An international meeting in St Martin’s Hall, London resolves to establish the International Working Men’s Association (the First International).

April 2, 1867: Marx informs Engels that he has finished his work on Volume I of Capital and intends to take the manuscript to Hamburg.

Early half of June 1867: Engels studies the latest discoveries in chemistry.

October 12, 1867-late June 1868: Engels writes a number of reviews of Marx’s Capital in liberal bourgeois and in workers’ newspapers.

April 1868: Engels makes a synopsis of Volume I of Capital.

July 1, 1869: Engels leaves the Manchester firm and devotes himself wholly to party work and to scientific and journalistic pursuits.

About July 28, 1869: Engels writes a short biography of Marx.

October 4, 1870: Engels is unanimously elected member of the General Council of the International Association. He is appointed Corresponding Secretary for Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Denmark.

March 19, 1871: Marx and Engels learn of the proletarian revolution that broke out in Paris on March 18.

March 19-May 28, 1871: Marx and Engels organize mass workers’ demonstrations and a broad campaign in support of the Paris Commune. Marx and Engels maintain constant contact with the Commune, and help the Communards with their advice.

September 17-23, 1871: Engels argues about the necessity for proletarian political action and for an independent proletarian party in each country, criticising anarchists and trade union reformists.

November 25, 1871: Engels writes refuting Bakuninism.

September 2-7, 1872: Marx and Engels take part in the Hague Congress of the First International, where the anarchists are censured and their leaders are expelled from the international.

1873-1883 (with intervals): Engels works on the Dialectics of Nature. He gives a dialectical materialist summary of the major achievements in natural science, and criticizes metaphysical and idealist views. The book remains unfinished.

March 18-28, 1975: Engels sets forth Marx’s and his own stand on the merger of the two workers organisations in Germany – the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (Eisenachers) and the General Association of German Workers (Lassalleans). Engels sharply criticizes the draft programme, and the system of Lassallean dogmas it contains.

May 1876-June 1878: Engels works on Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (subsequently known as Anti-Dühring), producing a thorough exposition of Marxist theory.

Early 1878: Engels writes ‘Natural Science in the Spirit World’, an article which he later incorporated in Dialectics of Nature.

March 1878:Engels’ articles,‘The Working Men of Europe in 1877’, examining the working-class movement in European countries published.

September 12, 1878: Engels’s wife Lizzie Burns, dies.

September 17-18, 1879: Marx and Engels write a Circular letter to social-democratic leaders in Germany, criticising opportunism and any conciliation with it.

January-March 1880: To propagate the ideas of scientific socialism in France, Engels rewrites three chapters of Anti-Duhring, producing a treatise in its own right, under the title, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.

March 14, 1883: Karl Marx dies.

March 17, 1883: At the funeral of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery, London, Engels speaks of the world-historical significance of Marx’s scientific and revolutionary activities.

End of August 1883: Engels begins editing the English translation of Volume I of Marx’s Capital; he works on it for nearly three years.

November 1883: Engels completes preparations for the third German edition of Volume I of Marx’s Capital; he writes a preface to it.

1883-1885: Engels prepares Volume II of Marx’s Capital for publication. The book appears early in July 1885 with Engels’ Preface.

End of March-May 26, 1894: Engels writes The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

End of February 1885-January 1894: Engels prepares Volume III of Marx’s Capital.

Early January 1887: The first English edition of Volume I of Marx’s Capital, edited by Engels and containing his Preface, comes out.

Early May 1887: Engels’ The Condition of the Working-Class in England appears in English in New York.

January–June,1889: Engels is busy preparing an International Socialist Congress, corresponds with socialists in different countries.

July 14, 1889: The International Socialist Congress opens in Paris; it gives birth to the Second International.

May 4, 1890: Engels takes part in the first May Day demonstration and meeting in London. He considers the mass demonstration and meeting a big victory for the English working-class movement.

January 1891: Engels publishes Marx’s Critique of The Gotha Programme.

June 1891: Engels criticises the draft programme of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany for its concessions to opportunism.

1891: Engels’ criticises the editors of Vorwarts, the central organ of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany for opportunist mistakes.

April 20, 1892: Engels’ introduction to the authorised English edition of Socialism Utopian and Scientific is published under the heading, ‘On Historical Materialism’.

July 29, 1893: Engels draws up a will; he leaves some of his property and his library to the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, and most of his assets to Marx’s daughters and grandchildren.

August 12, 1893: Engels attends the last sitting of the International Socialist Labour Congress, makes a speech in English, French and German.

Early December 1894: Volume III of Marx’s Capital is published, with Engels’ Preface.

Mid-June-July 24, 1895: Engels undergoes medical treatment at Eastbourne.

August 5, 1895: Frederick Engels dies.