| 1901 | Born in Portland, Oregon. |
| 1905 | Family moves to Condon, Oregon. |
| 1910 | Linus's
father, Herman Pauling, dies at the age of 33. Linus, his mother, and his two sisters move to and manage a Portland boarding house. |
| 1914 | A friend of Linus Pauling shows him a chemical experiment, triggering Pauling's fascination with chemistry. |
| 1917 | Enters Oregon Agricultural College (OAC - now Oregon State University) to study chemical engineering. |
| 1922 | Pauling, as a senior, teaches course in "Chemistry for Home Economics Majors" and he meets a student who will become his wife, Ava Helen Miller. Pauling graduates OAC with a B.S. in chemical engineering. |
| 1923 | Publishes his first scientific paper, on the crystal structure of molybdenite. |
| 1925 | Pauling graduates summa cum laude from California Institute of Technology with a Ph.D. in chemistry. He remains at Caltech for the next 38 years. |
| 1931 | Pauling's paper on "The Nature of the Chemical Bond" is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. |
| 1933 | Pauling is elected—the youngest member ever—to the National Academy of Sciences. |
| 1939 | The Nature of the Chemical Bond, considered one of the most influential scientific books ever, is published by Cornell University Press. |
| 1942-45 | Pauling works for several divisions of the National Defense Research Commission. |
| 1946 | At the invitation of Albert Einstein, Pauling becomes a member of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists. |
| 1948 | Receives the Presidential Medal of Merit of the United States. |
| 1949 | Elected president of the American Chemical Society. |
| 1954 | Receives the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its applications to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances." |
| 1956 | Directs research interest to mental illness. |
| 1958 | Pauling and wife, Ava Helen Pauling, present to UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld the petition to end nuclear-bomb testing with over 11,000 signatures from scientists around the world. |
| 1963 | Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1962. |
| 1966 | Responding to a letter from vitamin C advocate Irwin Stone, Pauling redirects his research interest to vitamins, micronutrients, and orthomolecular medicine. |
| 1970 | Publishes Vitamin C and the Common Cold. |
| 1973 | Founds, with Arthur B. Robinson and Keene Dimick, the Institute of Orthomolecular Medicine as a non-profit health research organization, which becomes The Linus Pauling Institute of Science & Medicine. |
| 1979 | Publishes Cancer and Vitamin C with co-author Ewan Cameron. |
| 1986 | Publishes How to Live Longer and Feel Better. |
| 1994 | Pauling dies at his California ranch. He leaves more than 400,000 journals, scientific writings, papers, models, and other scientific memorabilia to his undergraduate alma mater, Oregon State University. The collection makes up one of the great scientific archives of the 20th century. |
| 1996 | The Linus Pauling Institute of Science & Medicine moves to Oregon State University and becomes the Linus Pauling Institute. |
| 1997 | Balz Frei, Ph.D., assumes directorship of the Linus Pauling Institute and its Endowed Chair. |
| 2001 | Inauguration of "The Linus Pauling Institute Prize for Health Research" at a conference in Portland, OR, to celebrate the centennial of Linus Pauling's birth; the Ava Helen Pauling Chair is established at the Institute. |
| 2003 | Second “Diet and Optimum Health” conference and award of the LPI Prize for Health Research. |
| 2005 | Third “Diet and Optimum Health” conference and award of the LPI Prize for Health Research. |
Linus Pauling Biography |
