Klingon Timeline

1. About This Timeline

This is a dated chronology of the Klingon Empire as the Federation records it. It follows the same eras as History of the Klingon Empire, which tells the story in narrative form. Each era opens with a short note and then lists its events in order.

Dates before 2151 are Klingon tradition, not Federation record, and are given only where tradition is clear. Dates from 2151 onward come from Federation records, with Klingon and Romulan sources where they agree. Where an event touches the Romulan Star Empire, the date given here matches the Romulan section of this reference; see Timeline. Where a date is uncertain, the entry says so. For how the Empire is governed, see The High Council and the Chancellor.

2. The Founding and the Long Ages

Klingon tradition places the founding of the Empire about fifteen centuries ago. Almost nothing between the founding and first contact can be dated by the Federation.

3. First Contact (2151 to 2154)

The Empire met Earth by accident, and the meeting did not go well for long. These years also brought the Empire a plague of its own making.

4. The Long Rivalry (2154 to 2293)

For more than a century the Federation and the Empire were rivals and often enemies. A Klingon Neutral Zone lay between them. Most of what the Federation recorded in these years was conflict.

5. Praxis and Khitomer (2293)

One year turned two old enemies into allies. It began with a disaster and ended with a treaty.

6. The Alliance Years (2293 to 2364)

The first decades of the alliance were quiet between the Federation and the Empire, and anything but quiet between the Empire and the Romulans. After the Tomed Incident the Romulans broke off contact with the Federation, but the Klingons felt the weight of Romulan attention in these years far more than the Federation did.

7. Duras and the Civil War (2365 to 2371)

The truth about Khitomer, buried for twenty years, shaped the politics of the Great Hall in these years. The Romulans, newly returned to the galaxy in 2364, tried more than once to break the alliance from outside.

8. The Break and the Dominion War (2372 to 2375)

In four years the Empire went to war with the Federation, made peace again, fought the largest war in its recorded history, and changed Chancellors by combat in the Great Hall.

9. The Recovery Years (2375 to 2382)

Under Chancellor Martok the Empire rebuilt after the war, as the Federation’s ally. Across the Romulan border the Empire’s old enemy fell into crisis.

10. The Raids (2382 to 2390)

While the Romulan Empire looked inward, Klingons of lesser houses looked across the border. The High Council neither sanctioned their raids nor stopped them. The Romulans’ return to the line made them costly.

11. The Empire in 2393

The present is a time of watchfulness on the Romulan frontier and quiet calculation in the Great Hall.

12. Chancellors and Emperors

The Federation does not hold a full list of Chancellors. The table below gives only those whose dates are on record. Between Azetbur and K’mpec there is a gap the Federation cannot fill.

13. Gaps in the Record

The largest gap is everything before 2151. The Federation knows Klingon tradition about Kahless and the Hur’q, but it cannot date the Hur’q invasion, the end of the line of Emperors or the founding of the High Council. The second gap is the half century after Khitomer, when the alliance was too quiet to leave much of a record. The third is the inner life of the High Council since 2375, which the Federation knows mostly by its results. For the raids of the 2380s in particular, Federation entries rely on Starfleet observation and on what Klingons have said since, not on any Council record. See The High Council and the Chancellor and Klingons and Romulans.

14. See Also

The Klingon Empire · History of the Klingon Empire · The High Council and the Chancellor · The Great Houses · The Alliance with the Federation · Klingons and Romulans · The Klingon Frontier in 2393 · Timeline