Stephen Hawking

  • 1942

    Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford on 8th January. He is the first child of Frank and Isabel Hawking. The family were living in London at the time.
  • 1950

    The Hawking family leave London to go and live in St Albans. They buy a house there.
  • 1952

    Stephen starts as a student at St Albans School. He makes some good friends there and becomes interested in math and physics.
  • 1959

    At the age of seventeen, Stephen became a student at the University of Oxford.
  • 1962

    Stephen travels to Iran with a friend by bus and train. They are in a bus accident in an earthquake and his family do not hear from him for ten days.
    Stephen leaves Oxford with a very good degree and starts to do research in cosmology at the University of Cambridge.
    Stephen meets Jane Wilde at a friend's party in Cambridge. He soon falls in love with her.
  • 1963

    Doctors tell Stephen that he has motor neurone disease and has only a few years to live. He is very unhappy for some time, but then starts work again.
  • 1965

    Stephen marries Jane Wilde in St Albans. He can still walk, but it is not easy.
  • 1966

    Stephen starts a research job at the University of Cambridge.
  • 1967

    Stephen and Jane's first child, Robert is born.
  • 1969

    Stephen and Jane's second child, Lucy, is born. Lucy later writes some books for children with her father.
  • 1974

    Stephen becomes a member of the Royal Society. Stephen works for a year at the California Institute of Technology.
  • 1977

    Stephen becomes a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge.
  • 1979

    Stephen and Jane’s third child, Timothy, is born.
    Stephen becomes a professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
  • 1985

    Stephen cannot speak any more. At first, he points to letters on a card. Then he starts to use a special speaking machine. A computer controls it.
  • 1988

    Stephen writes A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Millions of people buy the book. He becomes very famous and people see him on television and in the newspapers.
  • 1995

    Stephen divorces Jane Wilde and marries Eline Manson.
  • 1997

    Stephen travels to Antartica.
  • 1999

    Stephen is in The Simpsons for the first time. He uses the voice from his speaking machine.
  • 2002

    Stephen goes up in a balloon for his sixtieth birthday.
  • 2007

    Jane Wilde writes a book about her life with Stephen. Later the book becomes the film The Theory of Everything.
    Stephen goes to the Kennedy Space Center to fly in zero gravity. He loves it.
  • 2009

    Stephen goes to the White House in Washington, D.C president Barack Obama gives him the presidential Medal of freedom.
  • 2012

    Stephen speaks at the opening of the London Paralympic Games. He speaks about science and the universe.
  • 2014

    The film The Theory of Everything, with EddieRedmayne and felicity jones,tells the story of Stephen’s life.
  • 2015

    Working with Yuri Milner, Stephen helps to start ten years of research into intelligent life in the universe. The work will finish in 2025.
  • 2018

    Stephen dies at home in Cambridge. He is seventy-six years old.