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In 1843, Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" is published. The story features elements of time travel, as Ebenezer Scrooge, the main character, is transported into the past and future in the story.
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In 1895, "The Time Machine" is published. It becomes one of the first major novels to discuss time travel and time machines in the plot.
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In 1905, Albert Einstein formalized his theory of special relativity, which introduced time dilation to modern physics.
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By 1931, the grandfather paradox, asking what would happen if you went back in time and killed you grandfather, had been theorized and noted as a possible paradox arising from time travel.
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In 1957, physicist John Wheeler coins the term "wormhole" for holes in spacetime that connect different parts of spacetime together and can possibly be used for time travel. Although it is highly theoretical, if they exist, they could allow travel to both the past and the future.
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In 1957, Hugh Everett III stated the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which asserts that all possible universes exist simultaneously, or that there are infinite parallel universes. Although the theory was almost universally ignored at the time, it rose to significance in the '70s after it was written about extensively, and today is seen as a major, legitimate theory.
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In 1974, Frank Tipler introduced the concept of the Tipler cylinder, an infinitely long cylinder that, if spun fast enough, could be used as a method of time travel.
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In 1985, Back To The Future is released. The film, the plot of which is heavily based on time travel, becomes a hit, grossing over 381 million dollars and becoming the highest grossing film of 1985.
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In 1994, Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre hypothesized the theoretical Alcubierre drive as a way to travel through time using exotic matter.
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In 2013, findings of the White–Juday warp-field interferometer experiment were published. This experiment was carried out in the hopes that the findings would give insight on building an Alcubierre drive. The experiment's main goal was to detect warping in spacetime. The results were inconclusive.
