| Timeline |
| 1857 |
Born 15 September in Cincinnati, Ohio |
| 1878 |
Graduates from Yale College |
| 1880 |
Graduates from Cincinnati Law School |
| 1881 |
Appointed assistant prosecutor in Hamilton County |
| 1886 |
Marries Helen Herron on 19 June |
| 1887 |
Judge in Ohio Superior Court (through 1890) |
| 1889 |
Son Robert born |
| 1890 |
Appointed U.S. Solicitor General by President Benjamin Harrison (through 1892) |
| 1891 |
Daughter Helen born |
| 1892 |
U.S. Circuit Court Judge (through 1900); serves as the first Dean of the University of Cincinnati College of Law |
| 1897 |
Son Charles born |
| 1901 |
Governor of the Philippines (through 1904) |
| 1904 |
Secretary of War under T Roosevelt (through 1908) |
| 1906 |
Four Aspects of Civic Duty published |
| 1906 |
Taft becomes a teetotaller |
| 1908 |
Taft wins the Republican presidential nomination and defeats Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the election |
| 1910 |
Begins the presidential tradition of throwing out the first pitch of the baseball year at the season opener between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics on 14 April |
| 1912 |
Taft defeated in presidential election by Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson |
| 1913 |
Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and its Peril published |
| 1913 |
Serves as Professor of Law at Yale |
| 1914 |
Serves as joint chairman of the National War Labor Board; The Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court and The United States and Peace published |
| 1915 |
Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers published |
| 1916 |
Campaigns for Charles Evans Hughes for President |
| 1921 |
Appointed Chief Justice of the United States by President Harding |
| 1921 |
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (through 1930) |
| 1930 |
Dies 8 March in Washington, D.C. (he and John F. Kennedy are the only two Presidents buried at Arlington Cemetery) |
