RIZAL’S TIMELINE

1848, June 28 -- Rizal’s parents married in Kalamba, La Laguna: Francisco Rizal-Mercado y Alejandra (born in
Biñan, April 18, 1818) and Teodora Morales Alonso-Realonda y Quintos (born in Sta. Cruz, Manila, Nov. 14,
1827).

1861, June 19 -- Rizal born, their seventh child.

1861, June 22 -- Christened as José Protasio Rizal-Mercado y Alonso-Realonda

1870, age 9 -- In school at Biñan under Master Justiniano Aquin Cruz.

1871, age 10 -- In Kalamba public school under Master Lucas Padua.

1872, June 10, age 11 -- Examined in San Juan de Letran college, Manila, which, during the Spanish time, as
part of Sto. Tomás University, controlled entrance to all higher institutions.

1872, June 26 -- Entered the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, then a public school, as a day scholar.

1875, June 16, age 14 -- Became a boarder in theAteneo.

1876, March 23, age 15  -- Received the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree, with highest honors, fromAteneo de
Manila.

1877, June. -- Entered Sto. Tomás University in the Philosophy course.

1877, Nov. 29 -- Awarded diploma of honorable mention and merit by the Royal Economic Society of Friends of
the Country, Amigos del País, for the prize poem.

1878, June, age 16. -- Matriculated in the medical course.  Won Liceo Artistico-Literario prize, in poetical
competition for “Indians and Mestizos”, with the poem “To the Philippine Youth”.

                     Wounded in the back for not saluting aGuardia Civil lieutenant whom he had not seen.  The
authorities ignored his complaint.

1880, April 23, age 19. -- Received Licco Artístico-Literario diploma of honorable mention for the allegory, “The
Council of the Gods”, in competition open to “Spaniards, mestizos and Indians”. Unjustly deprived of the first
prize.

1880, Dec. 8. -- Operetta “On the Banks of the Pasig” produced.

1881, age 20. -- Submitted winning wax model design for commemorative medal for the Royal Economic
Society of Friends of the Country centennial.

1882, May 3, age 21. -- Secretly left Manila taking a French mail steamer at Singapore  for Marseilles and
entering Spain at Port Bou by railroad. His brother, Paciano Mercado, furnished the money.

1882, June. -- Absence noted at Sto. Tomás University, which owned the Kalamba estate. Rizal’s father was
compelled to prove that he had no knowledge of his son’s plan in order to hold the land on which he was the
University’s tenant.

1882, June 15. -- Arrived in Barcelona.

1882, October 3. -- Began studies in Madrid.

1886,  --Received degree of Licentiate in Medicine with honors from Central University of Madrid on June 19 at
the age of 24.

                          Clinical assistant to Dr. L. de Wecker, a Paris oculist.

1887, Feb. 21, age 26. -- Finished the novel Noli Me Tangere in Berlin.

                          Traveled in Austria, Switzerland and Italy.

1887, July 3. -- Sailed from Marseilles.

1887, Aug. 5. -- Arrived in Manila. Traveled in nearby provinces with a Spanish lieutenant, detailed by the
Governor-General, as escort.

1888, Feb.  -- Sailed for Japan via Hong Kong.

1888, Feb.  28 to April 13, age 27. -- A guest at the Spanish Legation, Tokyo, and traveling in Japan.

1888, April-May.  -- Traveling in the United States.

1888, May 24. -- In London, studying in the British Museum to edit Morga’s 1609 Philippine History.

1889, March, age 28. -- In Paris, publishing Morga’s History. Published “The Philippines A Century Hence” in La
Solidaridad, a Filipino fortnightly review, first of Barcelona and later of Madrid.

1890, February to July, age 29.  -- In Belgium finished El Filibusterismo which is the sequel to Noli Me Tangere.

              Published “The Indolence of the Filipino” in La Solidaridad.

1890, August 4.  -- Returned to Madrid to confer with his countrymen on the Philippine situation, then
constantly growing worse.

1891, January 27. -- Left Madrid for France.

1891, November, age 30. -- Arranging for a Filipino agricultural colony in British North Borneo.

                          Practiced medicine in Hong Kong.

1892, June 26, age 31.  -- Returned to Manila under Governor-General Despujol’s safe conduct pass.

                          Organized a mutual aid economic society:La Liga Filipina on July 3.

1892, July 6.  -- Ordered deported to Dapitan, but the decree and charges were kept secret from him.

                          Taught school and conducted a hospital during his exile, patients coming from China coast ports for
treatment. Fees thus earned were used to beautify the town. Arranged a water system and had the plaza
lighted.

1896, August 1, age 35. -- Left Dapitan en route to Spain as a volunteer surgeon for the Cuban yellow fever
hospitals. Carried letters of recommendation from Governor-General Blanco.

1896, August 7 to September 3. -- On Spanish cruiser Castilla  in Manila Bay.

                          Sailed for Spain on Spanish mail steamer and just after leaving Port Said was confined to his cabin as
a prisoner on cabled order from Manila. (Rizal’s enemies to secure the appointment of a governor-general
subservient to them, the servile Polavieja had purchased Governor-General Blanco’s promotion.)

1896, October 6. -- Placed in Montjuich Castle dungeon on his arrival in Barcelona and the same day re-
embarked for Manila. Friends and countrymen in London by cable made an unsuccessful effort for a Habeas
Corpus writ at Singapore. On arrival in Manila was placed in Fort Santiago dungeon.

1890, December 3.  -- Charged with treason, sedition and forming illegal societies, the prosecution arguing that
he was responsible for the deeds of those who read his writings.
During his imprisonment Rizal began to formulate in his mind his greatest  poem who others later entitle, “My
Last Farewell.” (later concealed in an alcohol cooking lamp)

December 12 --- Rizal appears in a courtroom where the judges made no effort to check those who cry out for
his death.

1896, December 15.  -- Wrote an address to insurgent Filipinos to lay down their arms because their
insurrection was at that time hopeless. Address not made public but added to the charges against him.

1896, December 27. -- Formally condemned to death by a Spanish court martial.

Pi y Margall, who had been president of the Spanish Republic, pleaded with the Prime Minister for Rizal’s life,
but the Queen Regent could not forgive his having referred in one of his writings to the murder by, and suicide
of, her relative, Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria.

1896, December 29 -- Completes and puts into writing "My Last Farewell."  He conceals the poem in an alcohol
heating apparatus and gives it to his family.  He may have also concealed another copy of the same poem in
one of his shoes but, if so, it is lost in decomposition in his burial.

1896, December 30, age 35 years, 6 months, 11 days.  -- Roman Catholic sources allege that Rizal marries
Josephine Bracken in his Fort Santiago death cell to Josephine Bracken; she is Irish, the adopted daughter of a
blind American who came to Dapitan from Hong Kong for treatment.

Shot on the Luneta, Manila, at 7:03 a.m., and buried in a secret grave in Paco Cemetery. (Entry of his death was
made in the Paco Church Register among suicides.)

1887, January. -- Commemorated by Spanish Free-masons who dedicated a tablet to his memory, in their
Grand Lodge hall in Madrid, as a martyr to Liberty.

1898, August.  -- Filipinos who placed over it in Paco cemetery, a cross inscribed simply “December 30, 1896”,
sought his grave, immediately after the American capture of Manila. Since his death his countrymen had never
spoken his name, but all references had been to “The Dead”.

1898, December 20. -- President Aguinaldo, of the Philippine Revolutionary Government, proclaimed
December 30th as a day of national mourning.

1898, December 30. -- Filipinos held Memorial services at which time American soldiers on duty carried their
arms reversed.

1911, June 19. -- Birth semi-centennial observed in all public schools by an act of the Philippine Legislature.

1912, December 30. -- Rizal’s ashes transferred to the Rizal Mausoleum on the Luneta with impressive public
ceremonies.