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Maria Montessori was born on August 31 in Chiaravalle, Ancona province, Italy.
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The Montessori family moved to Rome in 1875, and the following year the young Maria enrolled in the local state school on the Via di San Nicolo da Tolentino.
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Montessori began attending Regia Scuola Tecnica Michelangelo Buonarroti, a secondary technical school, at the age of 13.
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Montessori graduated from the University of Rome with a Doctor of Medicine degree, one of the first women in Italy to gain this degree.
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She volunteered to join a research program at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome, and it was here that she worked alongside Giusseppe Montesano, with whom a romance was to develop.
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The relationship with Giusseppe Montesano had developed into a love affair, and in 1898 Maria gave birth to a child, a boy named Mario, who was given into the care of a family who lived in the countryside near Rome. Maria visited Mario often, but it was not until he was older then he came to know that Maria was his mother. A strong bond was nevertheless created, and in later years he collaborated and traveled with his mother, continuing her work after her death.
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Attends women’s congress in London，received by Queen Victoria.
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Begins the second degree—in education, experimental psychology, and anthropology—at the University of Rome. Visits elementary schools to do anthropological research.
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First Children’s House (Casa dei Bambini) is opened at 53 Via dei Marsi in the San Lorenzo district of Rome on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. A small opening ceremony was organized, but few had any expectations for the project. Montessori felt differently: “I had a strange feeling which made me announce emphatically that here was the opening of an undertaking of which the whole world would one day speak.”
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Montessori published her first book: "The Montessori Method" based on her work at the Casa dei Bambini. In the years to follow, this book is translated into over 20 languages.
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Montessori went to the United States for the first time. The same year, Montessori Educational Association founded in the United States. Its membership includes Alexander Graham Bell, his wife, Mabel Bell, S.S. McClure, and President Wilson’s daughter, Margaret Woodrow Wilson.
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Second trip to the United States, accompanied by her son, Mario. He would eventually play a huge role in the development of the Montessori Method, especially the establishment of the elementary program.
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Training course in London using the format that would become standard: fifty hours of lectures, fifty hours of teaching using the materials, fifty hours of observation of Montessori classes.
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Meeting of Montessori with Benito Mussolini (who had come to power in 1922) results in official recognition and widespread establishment of Montessori schools by the Italian government.
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Montessori and her son, Mario, founded the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) during the first International Montessori Conference. The first headquarters were in Berlin. Then first International Montessori Congress in Helsingør, Denmark.
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Montessori spoke on the subject of Peace and Education at the Second International Montessori Conference. Peace education and cosmic education have become the most important research achievements for the rest of her life.
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Due to various political tensions throughout Europe, Montessori eventually moved the AMI quarters Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where it remains to this day. At this time there are over 200 Montessori schools in the Netherlands.
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1939-1946, training courses in Madras, Kodaikanal, Karachi, and Ahmedabad in India, and in Ceylon. Further develops the Cosmic Education Plan for the Elementary years with Mario’s collaboration.
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Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, at the time Montessori was in India giving a lecture tour. Mario was interned for 2 months but was released due to the Viceroy's respect for Montessori for her 70th birthday.
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The first nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize (again in 1950 and 1951). Definitive return to Europe. Eighth International Montessori Congress in San Remo, Italy.
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Maria Montessori dies May 6 in Noordwijk aan Zee, Netherlands; she is buried at the local Catholic cemetery.
