The Gravity Falls Timeline
All of this is based on my video, but I assume not many people will want to sit through 2.5 hours of me working this out, so here's a condensed written version.
Some rules I set for myself: If the actual name of an IP, a person or an event is referenced in J3/the Show, I included it into my math for my timeline (ex: references to Ronald Reagan or The Eurythmics, or other REAL WORLD figures). If a REFERENCE is made without the actual name being referenced (ex: in the Journal, Ford mentions Phantom Bustifiers, a reference to Ghostbusters, a movie that didn’t come out in our world until 1984), I did not put that into this timeline (I know what year Ghostbusters came out, but not which year Phantom Bustifiers came out).
With that in mind, let’s begin:
The Stans are born June 15 1951.
Their Bar Mitzvah happened when they were 12 (not 13, as is typical) and their birthday is on June 15th. Because a Bar Mitzvah is dependent on one’s birthday on the Hebrew calendar and not the Gregorian calendar, this means that their 13th Hebrew birthday must land on a date that is BEFORE their 13th Gregorian birthday, something that is typically more rare (the Hebrew birthday is usually AFTER one’s typically celebrated birthday).
The only viable year where this applies is 1951, when their birthday lands on Sivan 11, resulting in a 13th Hebrew birthday in May of 1964, BEFORE their 13th birthday on June 15th
The Stans find the Stan O War in spring of 1964 at age 12 (or 1961, if you think they were 10)
There are two viable dates for when they find the Stan o War, depending on if they’re 10 (the same age Stan was when he started writing Lil Stanley in the Lost Legends comics) or 12 (the same age as Dipper and Mabel). I think that the way the artist drew the young Stan twins in the Lil Stanley comic looks (age 10) looks slightly younger than how they look in the series (and they are designed a little differently than they look in the Jersey Devil comic, when we KNOW they have the Stan O War already), but there is evidence for both sides.
I lean toward them being 12 because they pull out a sharpie, which wasn’t invented until 64, but there is a reference to a Bruce Springsteen song in a magazine in Lost Legends, quoted by someone named “Brucey S, age 11” and Bruce Springsteen would have been 11 in 1961, so this might be 1961 (or the magazine Ford is reading from might be an old magazine.) I went with 1964, because I think 12 parallelled the ages of Dipper and Mabel better.
Stan gets kicked out in spring of 1969 right before they turned 18. Ford starts at Backupsmore in the fall semester.
Stan makes a reference to Jackie O, which means Jackie Kennedy already remarried to be Jackie Onnassis, and is also still in the public eye, something that would be progressively less common after 1969 (she also happened to visit New Jersey in spring of 1969 and that would have made state headlines, something which is probably a coincidence, but nonetheless very interesting).
Furthermore, there is a portrait of Nixon in the principal’s office, and he would have been sworn in in early 1969.
I think 1969 is more likely than 1970 because ‘69 gives more wiggle room for Shermie to be the baby (more on that later) and for Ford to get at least one PhD.
-Stan dates Carla “Hotpants” McCorkle,(reconnecting for another date after the one at the theater in their teenage years), probably in 1971 (if this “hallucinatey” date even happened at all; if you dont think it happened at all, disregard).
We know this is a later date, when stan is an adult, because his design matches the designs on one of his fake IDs from his years on the run. It was likely 1971 because that is when the term “hotpants” was used to describe those short shorts.
The hippie aesthetic also started dying down after 1972 after the Manson attacks, so I picked 71 for the Juke Joint date.
Ford graduated from Backupsmore at the very earliest 1974, MAYBE early 1975.
In the journal it says he went to Gravity Falls in 1975, but we know he couldn’t have graduated earlier than 74, because we know that he played DDnMoreD in college, and he says in the journal that it was copyrighted in 1974. He also says Stanley always mocked him for playing it, which literally isn’t possible, so he’s either misremembering Stanley mocking him for an EARLIER TTRPG, or this copyright is for a later edition (though I think it must be the former, since DDnMD is a clear reference to DnD which WAS copyrighted in 1974. Still. Up to you.)
This means he completed his PhD in 6 years (or, three years ahead of schedule as described in the series). I believe many of his other PhDs were honorary degrees, and didn't bother working them into this timeline. He got them later.
Stan joins Rico’s gang in the late 70s
Sometime in the late 70s, Stan gets tangled up in what is implied to be the Colombian cartel, which would have been most active in the late 70s, between 75 and 79. Following his trajectory on the map in ATOTS showing his path across the country, he headed below the border toward the end of that trackline, so it was probably later on.
Ford started Journal 3 in 1981, shortly after meeting Bill in 1981.
He says he discovered his muse in 1981 in J3. He also says he is starting J3 six years after he started investigating Gravity Falls (which he did in 75). He also says early on in J3 that he is in his 30s, and he would have turned 30 in June of 1981, three days before he started J3.
There is some fuckery here on how he’s known his muse for “two years” midway J3, and the way I explain that in the video is that the first part of J3 spans nearly 2 years, and there is ample evidence that he wrote many pages out of order. This might be a page from later on in 1982, early 83, instead of mid-81.
We know that Reagan was already in office at this point.
Fiddleford shows up in July of 1982. Fiddleford begins making the memory gun after the Gremloblin incident later that year.
We know at least a year has passed because if you track the months, they go from June, to August, and then later on down to July again when Fiddleford is called. As for the Gremloblin incident, it happened relatively close to the bunker incident (which would have been closer to summer, since it was still hot outside) but it was followed closely by the carnival, where they had squash for sale, and squash are in season after September, typically.
First Portal Test is on January 18, 1983
Fiddleford falls through the portal, his head poking through, on January 18 1983, the day after the confrontation he had with Ford in the diner.
Late February, 1983 - The Portal Incident
There are three many reasons I chose this date. Firstly, we know it is 1983 not just because it follows the trajectory of earlier dates, but because we know that Ford has heard The Eurythmics’ chart topper “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This” because when he returns he says he is looking forward to their next one, and that came out in January of 83’, before he would have been sucked through.
Secondly, five weeks after January 18th, it would still be snowy in up-mountain Oregon where Ford is, but not that snowy in New Mexico where Stan is when he gets the post card.
Thirdly, we know at least 5-6 weeks have passed because Ford describes about this many weeks during his “paranoid era” in the journal (more than one instance of “a couple weeks, several weeks, a few weeks”, etc.).
In the year 2000, Dipper and Mabel are born.
I know most people think it’s 1999. And that is fine, but I have ample evidence that the show takes place in 2013, not 2012 (see below), so 2000 would have to work for their birthday.
But 2000 also gives a little bit of wiggle room to Shermie being the baby. (If you don’t think Shermie is the baby, disregard this section). If Shermie IS the baby, then if he was born in spring of 1969 (late 68 at the earliest), then you can barely fit two generations of Pines in the space between 1969 and 2000. It would mean that both Shermie and his kid would need to be 15 when they had a kid, which is … not great, but not impossible? I dunno man, take it up with Hirsch. (Or just assume the baby is Shermie’s kid. Follow your dreams).
In 2013, Dipper and Mabel visit their Grunkle Stan in Gravity Falls.
The Northwest ghost died in what is described in the journal as “The Great Flood of 1863”. The Northwests are trying to keep this flood under wraps in J3, because they don’t want people finding out about the lumberjacks killed in the flood. The Northwest Ghost swore with his dying breath to come back 150 yrs after his death. 150 years later from 1863, is 2013.
The 1040 form that Stan is filling out his Tax Fraud note on in the truth-telling ep is a 2012 form. To file tax returns, you use w2s 1040s labeled under the PREVIOUS year
Sevral Timez shouts "2013"
1983 is 30 years before 2013.
Note: This would mean that the Stans are 62 at the end of the summer, which might mean that they are "pushing 70" as Stan describes himself.
Anyways, here's the full video if you have 2.5 hours. Otherwise, enjoy this resource!
