Historians think of time as a line. We stand at the end, in the present, and the line stretches back as far as we can imagine. (We also can imagine the line going into the future. In the near future is our next exam or the end of the term; in the distant future, we will go to Mars on vacation.)
History students should cultivate this linear view of time, because they may be asked to show cause-and- effect sequences::
Example: The U.S. purchased the Louisiana Territory form France and as a result gained control of the Mississippi River. Can you think of other direct results of the purchase? Take it another step: What was one result of U.S. control of the Mississippi?
Chronology by itself it not history--it is just an ordered list. However, organizing your material into chronological lists can be a helpful study exercise. In some cases, the time sequence can be critical to understanding events:
Example: In the closing days of WWII, the US hit Hiroshima with an A-bomb, the USSR declared war on Japan and invaded China, the U.S. bombed Nagasaki, Japan surrendered. This list does not explain the relationship of these events, but having this sequence of events clearly in mind will be the first step in analyzing the meaning of the events and their relation to one another..
Many textbooks have timeline charts and chronological lists. Study them! They will be h helpful to you.
If you know how to use Excel, you can create a timeline, starting with a column of dates and adding text columns to the right. Start with a row for each decade and then insert rows to add finer detail as you go. This type of activity can be a way of studying.