Jul 6, 1907 - Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón is born in Mexico City, Mexico. 

Father (Guillermo) was a German immigrant and mother (Matilde) was Mexican of mixed Indigenous (Purépecha) and Spanish ancestry. The family home in the Coyoacán borough of the capital city is called La Casa Azul.  

1910 - The Mexican Revolution breaks out. Kahlo would later falsely claim to be born in this year, in solidarity with the revolution. 

1911 – Mexican President Porfirio Díaz resigns in May and Francisco I. Madero takes office in November. Emiliano Zapata leads an armed rebellion in support of peasants in the Mexican state of Morelos.  

1913 - Kahlo contracts polio and spends months isolated at home. Because of the disease, Kahlo's right leg grows shorter and thinner than her left one.   

1913 - President Madero is deposed by army generals and assassinated on the orders of new president, Victoriano Huerta. Armed rebellions against the government continue. Venustiano Carranza and Francisco "Pancho" Villa lead the Constitutionalist forces.  

1914 - The revolutionaries defeat Huerta and the Federal Army and then begin fighting each other for control of the state. The Constitutionalists under Carranza consolidate power. Villa breaks with Carranza, and his forces are defeated in 1915. Zapata is assassinated in 1919.  

1917 - The Mexican Constitution is introduced, with Carranza becoming President. 

1920 - Carranza attempts to name a civilian his successor, but the army generals object and stage a coup. Carranza attempts to flee Mexico but is killed. Only revolutionary generals serve as President for the next twenty years.  

1922 - Kahlo begins studies at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School) with the aim of becoming a physician. Diego Rivera paints a mural at her school.  

Sep 17, 1925 - Kahlo is seriously injured in a bus accident, suffering fractures and severe injuries to her pelvis, abdomen, spine, right leg and foot, and collarbone. She begins to paint during her long recovery.  

1926 - Kahlo paints Self-portrait in a Velvet Dress, her earliest surviving self-portrait.  

1927 - Kahlo is introduced to student politics by friends, and she joins the Mexican Communist Party.  

June 1928 - Kahlo is introduced to Rivera at a party. She asks him for his opinion about her paintings, and the two soon begin a relationship. He is 21 years older than her and a known philanderer.  

Aug 21, 1929 - Kahlo and Rivera are married. Rivera is soon kicked out of the Communist Party, and Frida quits as well in solidarity. Both of them continue to have affairs over the course of their marriage. Kahlo was openly bisexual, but only the affairs with men caused Rivera to be jealous.  

June 1930 - Kahlo has to abort a pregnancy due to medical complications. Her injuries from the bus accident will prevent her from being able to carry a child to term.  

Nov 1930 - The couple move to San Francisco where Rivera paints murals for the San Francisco Stock Exchange and California School of Fine Arts. Kahlo paints her double portrait Frida and Diego Rivera, based on their wedding photograph.  

Fall 1931 - The couple travel to New York City to see the Museum of Modern Art's retrospective on Rivera.  

Apr 1932 - The couple move to Detroit where Rivera paints murals for the Detroit Institute of Arts. Kahlo suffers a miscarriage and is hospitalized that summer. Her mother dies from surgery complications a few months later.  

Mar 1933 - Rivera is commissioned to paint a mural at Rockefeller Center in New York, but the commission is eventually rescinded after he includes the Soviet leader Lenin in the artwork. The couple returns to Mexico at the end of the year and move into a new house in the San Ángel neighborhood of Mexico City.  

Late 1934 - Kahlo discovers that Rivera is having an affair with her younger sister, Cristina. Frida moves out of the house for several months, but the couple reconcile later that year. Kahlo's 1937 painting Memory, the Heart depicts the difficulty of the affair. 

1937 - Kahlo and Rivera petition the Mexican government to grant asylum to former Soviet leader Leon Trotsky. Trotsky arrives in January and lives at La Casa Azul for the next two years. He and Kahlo have a brief affair. 

1938 - Surrealist artist André Breton becomes an admirer of Kahlo's artwork. American actor Edward G. Robinson (Double Indemnity, Key Largo) buys four self-portraits from Kahlo. She also has her first solo exhibition at a gallery in New York. 

Mar 1939 - Kahlo travels to Paris where Breton introduces her to Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp and others. The Louvre acquires one of her paintings, making her the first Mexican artist in its collection. 

Nov 1939 - Rivera and Kahlo divorce. Kahlo moves back to La Casa Azul. She finishes work on her double portrait The Two Fridas and also paints Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair. 

Aug 21, 1940 – Trotsky, who had moved out of La Casa Azul a year earlier, is assassinated in Mexico City.  

Dec 8, 1940 - Kahlo and Rivera remarry in a simple ceremony in San Francisco, where she had travelled for treatment. Kahlo's health begins to seriously decline over the next several years, while she at the same time paints several of her most famous works, including The Broken Column. 

Apr 1941 - Kahlo's father dies of a heart attack. She and Rivera now live at La Casa Azul, and he uses the San Ángel house as his studio.  

1943 - Kahlo begins teaching at La Esmeralda, an art school in Mexico City. The commute from Coyoacán is a challenge for her health, and her classes are later moved to her home. 

Jun 1945 - Kahlo travels to New York for spinal surgery.  

1946 - Kahlo is awarded the National Prize of Arts and Sciences. 

1947 - Harry Truman becomes the first U.S. President to visit Mexico.  

1948 - Kahlo rejoins the Communist Party.  

1950 - Kahlo spends most of the year in a hospital in Mexico City, after developing gangrene in her right foot.  

August 1953 - Kahlo's right leg is amputated at the knee. Her work is exhibited at the Mexico City Gallery of Contemporary Art, her first solo exhibition in Mexico. Kahlo has to attend the opening lying in a bed.  

July 13, 1954 - Kahlo dies at home at age 47 of a pulmonary embolism. The last words she wrote in her diary were "I joyfully await the exit – and I hope never to return." Her body lies in state at the Palace of Fine Arts.  

Nov 24, 1957 - Rivera dies at the age of 70.  

1958 - La Casa Azul becomes the Frida Kahlo Museum, now one of the most popular museums in Mexico City.  

1977 - The Tree of Hope Stands Firm sells at auction, the first of Kahlo's paintings to do so.  

1978 – The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago stages the first solo museum exhibition of Kahlo’s work in the United States.  

1983 - Hayden Herrera publishes Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, which becomes a bestseller. 

1984 – Mexico declares Kahlo’s works to be part of its national cultural heritage and prohibits her works to be exported from the country. 

1990 – Kahlo's painting Diego and I becomes the first work by a Latin American artist to sell for more than US$1 million. 

2001 - Kahlo becomes the first Hispanic woman on a U.S. postage stamp.  

2002 - Frida, a biopic film starring Salma Hayek and directed by Julie Taymor, is released. The film wins Oscars for Best Makeup and Best Original Score. 

2014 – A shorter version of Frida...A Self Portrait premieres in Kansas City.  

2019 – The full-length version of Frida...A Self Portrait debuts at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. 

2025 – Frida…A Self Portrait begins performances at Writers Theatre in January. The Art Institute of Chicago opens a new exhibit, Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds, in March.