Timeline Mark Twain

Mark Twain 14

• 1835 Mark Twain born in Florida, Missouri Samuel Langhorne Clemens is born in the village of Florida, Missouri, two weeks after Halley's Comet passes closest to the Sun.
• 1839 Twain's family moves to Hannibal The Clemens family moves to Hannibal on the Mississippi, the model for St. Petersburg in Tom Sawyer.
• 1857 Twain becomes a river pilot Samuel Clemens apprentices as a Mississippi steamboat pilot and earns his licence two years later.
• 1861 Twain heads West The Civil War closes the river, and Samuel Clemens goes to the Nevada Territory with his brother Orion.
• 1863 Clemens first signs as Mark Twain Writing for the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Samuel Clemens first uses the riverboat call Mark Twain as his pen name.
• 1865 Twain's Jumping Frog story Mark Twain's The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County appears in New York and makes him known nationally.
• 1869 Twain publishes The Innocents Abroad Mark Twain's account of a cruise to Europe and the Holy Land becomes the best-selling book of his lifetime.
• 1870 Twain marries Olivia Langdon Mark Twain marries Olivia Langdon of Elmira, New York. They later settle in Hartford, Connecticut.
• 1876 Twain publishes The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain's novel of boyhood on the Mississippi is published.
• 1885 Twain publishes Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain's novel of Huck and the escaped slave Jim is published in the United States, a book Hemingway later called the source of all modern American literature.
• 1894 Twain goes bankrupt Failed investments, above all the Paige typesetting machine, bankrupt Mark Twain. He sets off on a lecture tour around the world to repay his debts.
• 1896 Twain's daughter Susy dies Susy Clemens dies of meningitis at 24 while her parents are abroad on the lecture tour.
• 1907 Twain receives an Oxford doctorate Mark Twain is awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oxford.
• 1910 Mark Twain dies in Redding, Connecticut Mark Twain dies the day after Halley's Comet returns, as he had predicted he would go out with it.