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Duke of Buccleuch created in the Peerage of Scotland
Nick says that the Carraways "have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch,"
The Duke of Buccleuch was a title created for the Duke of Monmouth, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II. -
Nick's great-uncle arrives in New Haven, Connecticut
(specific date unknown)
Nick's great uncle "came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today". He was the "actual founder of [Nick's] line". Nick is "supposed to look like him". -
Period: to
American Civil War
Nick's great-uncle sends "a substitute to the Civil War". This meant that if a man was drafted into the army and he didn't want to fight, he could hire a "substitute" to fight for him if he could afford it. The Conscription Act of 3 March 1863 legalized this, though it was allowed to happen by the government since 1862. -
Nick's father graduates from New Haven
(specific date unknown)
Nick graduates from New Haven "just a quarter of a century after my father". By deducting 25 years from 1915, Nick's father probably graduated in the year of 1890. -
Tom Buchanan born
(specific date unknown)
Nick describes Tom as a "sturdy straw-haired man of thirty" in Chapter 1, page 6. As he says before, it is 1922. By subtracting 30 years, it works out that Tom was born in 1892, though his actual birthday isn't yet mentioned. -
Mr and Mrs Wilson start living at the garage
(specific date unknown)
Catherine tells Nick that Myrtle Wilson and her husband have "been living over that garage for eleven years". -
Period: to
The First World War
Nick went to the Great War in 1915, not long after he graduated from New Haven. -
Nick graduates from New Haven
(specific date unknown)
Nick went to Yale University (an Ivy League university) and says that he graduated in 1915. He refers to Yale as New Haven-this is a way of talking about a place to 'those in the know', which cuts out people who don't know the slang for the more upper class universities. -
Daisy and Tom's daughter born
(specific date unknown)
Daisy and Tom's daughter is three in 1922, therefore she must have been born around 1919. She is hardly mentioned by her parents, and her name isn't talked of at all. This links to the lack of children mentioned in the novel.
Daisy says that Tom "was God knows where" during the birth, and mentions that she cries when she finds out that her child is a girl. -
"The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy" published
(specific date unknown)
This book was probably the inspiration for the book that Tom mentions: "The Rise of the Colored Empires by this man Goddard". The author's name is probably a slight change from the author of the original book: Lothrop Stoddard. -
Catherine's trip to Monte Carlo
(specific date unknown)
Catherine tells Nick that "we just went to Monte Carlo and back". She "went over there with another girl" just last year. They went through Marseilles but got duped out of her money and had difficulty returning home. She mentions how she "hated that town!" -
Nick "goes East" to Long Island
(specific date unknown)
Nick decides to go East to learn the bond business in the Spring of 1922, "permanently, [he] thought". This suggests that he returns to Connecticut at some point in the novel. His father agreed to "finance him for a year". -
Nick's evening with Daisy and Tom
As Daisy says that the longest day of the year is "in two weeks", it therefore follows that the evening Nick spent with the Buchanan's was probably the 7th of June, as that was exactly 2 weeks before the Summer Solstice. -
Summer Solstice
Daisy mentions that "In two weeks it'll be the longest day of the year" and that she usually misses it. -
Nick meets Mrs Wilson (Tom's "girl") in New York
"a few days before the Fourth of July" (specific date unknown)
Nick travels up to New York with Tom and ends up meeting Myrtle Wilson (Tom's "girl") and attending a kind of party in their apartment with Myrtle's sister Catherine, and Mr and Mrs McKee, a couple who live above the apartment.