📽️ The In-Universe Chronology
Scroll horizontally to travel through MCU history. Each node is placed where its events occur in-story — not when the film released. Hover to read what happens.
The complete Marvel Cinematic Universe in chronological in-story order — from Captain America's WWII crash in 1943 to the fractured Multiverse Saga. Release dates don't apply here. This is the order events actually happen.
Scroll horizontally to travel through MCU history. Each node is placed where its events occur in-story — not when the film released. Hover to read what happens.
When Loki escaped with the Tesseract in 2012. When Doctor Strange cast an unsecured spell. When the Watcher started answering "What if...?" — the single sacred timeline became many.
Doctor Strange's spell pulled in everyone from every universe who knew Peter Parker's identity. The three Spider-Men who met in No Way Home each came from a distinct reality — each had already lost someone.
The precise moments when the timeline splintered.
During the Battle of New York revisit, the time heist goes wrong. Captured Loki grabs the dropped Tesseract and vanishes — creating the Loki branch that drives the entire Disney+ series and introduces Kang the Conqueror through He Who Remains.
Past-Nebula's synchronized memory alerts 2014-Thanos to the entire plan. He captures present-Nebula and dispatches his forces forward to destroy Earth. The consequence of this action only hits the Sacred Timeline, not a branch.
Sylvie kills He Who Remains at the end of time. His death removes the being who had been pruning every branching timeline for thousands of years. The Sacred Timeline instantly fractures into infinite Multiversal branches — this is the moment the full Multiverse Saga officially begins.
Peter's repeated interruptions during the spell to make the world forget his identity cause it to crack open and pull in every villain and every Peter Parker from adjacent realities. The ultimate result — Peter rewrites the spell to erase himself entirely. The MCU loses its Spider-Man connection to all prior films.
A Scarlet Witch-corrupted Wanda possesses her 838-variant's body to reach her dream children. The Illuminati are killed. This is the first time the MCU explicitly shows an alternate reality with recast characters (John Krasinski's Reed Richards, Patrick Stewart's Professor X) — establishing the multiverse is cinematically real.
Scott defeats one Kang variant in the Quantum Realm. A post-credits scene reveals that the Council of Kangs — thousands of Kang variants from across the multiverse — are now mobilizing against the Sacred Timeline. This sets up the Avengers: The Kang Dynasty conflict.