Naturally it is impossible to write a detailed history covering 400+ years of 'future history' and also include an in-depth look at relevant historical events as well. What is presented here is an abridged timeline covering the major events mentioned in the broadcast episodes of Star Trek, the several Star Trek movies and the Star Trek animated episodes.

The canonicity of these entries was determined as follows:

Historical events: these are actual events from real world history mentioned in Star Trek. For example, we know Captain Kirk was a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln (from the "Savage Curtain" TOS episode). From historical accounts we know that Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater on Friday, April, 14, 1865 by John Wilkes-Booth.

Dates Drawn Directly from Dialogue: Sometimes Star Trek gave us exact dates. For example, in the movie FIRST CONTACT we know that first contact between Earth and Vulcan took place in Montana, at a ruined SAC base on April 5, 2063.

Paramount Official Publications: The Star Trek Encyclopedia, the Star Trek Chronology, the Star Trek: Next Generation Technical Manual, the DS9 Technical Manual, the Star Trek Star Charts and the Star Trek: Enterprise D Blueprints are all considered "canon" by Paramount.

Extrapolated Dates: Dates can be extrapolated in 2 ways. If an event is mention as having taken place "a hundred years ago", it is assumed to have taken place exactly 100 years ago. Of course, if could just as easily been 105 years ago or 95 years ago, but close enough for government work.

Another way to extrapolate dates is when dialogue pins them down with more certainty. For example, in the TOS episode "All Our Yesterdays", when Kirk is in the custody of Cape Kennedy security, we hear a snippet of radio chatter on Uhura's com-board that mention's "next Wednesday's moon launch". We know from history that Apollo 11 was launched on Wednesday, July 16, 1969 (one of Star Trek's lesser known prognostications was that the moonshot would in fact be launched on a Wednesday). Therefore, we know that the events of that episode occurred sometime in the week prior (Sunday July 3 - Saturday July 9).

Dates garnered from Stardates: Next Generation and later episodes used a Stardating system that could actually be translated into Gregorian calendar dates. See the article on Stardates Explained! for more information.

Dates extrapolated from the Animated Series: Where the Star Trek Animated Series doesn't contradict the live action series or movies, historical information is used. Where it does contradict the live action films, the live action information takes precedence.