Timeline of the film (2024)

This is a timeline of the film Forrest Gump.

Before the Film's Timeline[]

• 1778: An unnamed Taylor ancestor is killed in the Revolutionary War.
• 1863: A second Taylor ancestor is killed in Gettysburg, during the Civil War.
• 1866: Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the man whom Forrest is named after, founded the KKK.
• January 9, 1913: Richard Nixon is born.
• 1917: A third Taylor ancestor is killed in the First World War.
• May 29, 1917: John F. Kennedy is born.
• November 20, 1925: Robert F. Kennedy is born.
• January 8, 1935: Elvis Presley is born.
• March 2, 1943: Benjamin Buford Blue is born.
• June 6, 1944: A fourth Taylor ancestor (most likely a grandparent) is incapacitated during the Normandy Landings in WWII. Meanwhile, Forrest Gump is born in Greenbow, Alabama to Mrs. Gump and an unnamed man.
• July 16, 1945: Jenny Curran is born.
• 1945-1950: Forest Gump’s father either walks out on him and his mother or dies. His mother claims “he went on vacation”.

During The Film[]

• August 11, 1951: Forrest gets his new leg braces, and walks through Greenbow town with his mother.
• August 13, 1951: Forrest's mother visits the school principal to enroll Forrest. However, the principal takes advantage of Forrest's disability and has sex with Mrs. Gump.
• August 30, 1951: Forrest meets a young Elvis Presley (while Elvis was staying in their house for some time). Forrest liked dancing to Elvis’s music.
• September 4, 1951: Forrest gets onto the bus for his first day of school, where he meets Jenny Curran, and they become friends.
• October 1, 1951: Forrest breaks his leg braces and is able to run as he is being chased by bullies. He runs to Jenny's house where they pray to God after being chased by her abusive father. Jenny's father is arrested and Jenny is moved to her grandmother's house.
• May 11, 1955: Jenny's father dies in prison.
• July 13, 1956: Forrest and Mrs. Gump see Elvis's Hound Dog performance, which mirrors Forrest's walking.
• September 30, 1961: Forrest is once more chased by the bullies. However, when he outsmarts and loses them, he runs onto a football field.
• October 1, 1962: Forrest attends the University of Alabama, where he becomes popular in football.
• June 11, 1963: Earl, Forrest, and several students watch as Governor Wallace stands in a doorway while making a speech about segregated black students. Forrest helps a girl with her books.
• 1963: Forrest meets President Kennedy, where he replies to Kennedy's question, "How does it feel to be an All-American", "I gotta pee".
• November 22, 1963: John F. Kennedy dies from assassination.
• June 10, 1966: Forrest graduates from college and enlists in the U.S. Army.
• June 1 to June 2, 1967: Forrest discovers while in boot camp that Jenny has posed for Playboy while wearing her college sweater, which leads to her being expelled. As a result of her photos however, she is hired to perform and sing in a strip club under the name Bobbie Dylan. While on leave, Forest comes to watch her sing and again saves Jenny — this time from men grabbing at Jenny's legs during her performance. Forrest beats up the men and tries to carry Jenny out the door to which she angrily breaks free and shoves her guitar at him and walking off stage nude and causing laughter in the crowd and Jenny gets fired. Outside of the club, Jenny scolds Forrest for trying to protect her. Forrest admits (for the first time) that he loves her, but Jenny rebukes his claim, as she doesn't believe Forrest is capable of knowing what love is. She reflects on the day she and he prayed for God to turn her into a bird when they were kids, and has a momentary thought of committing suicide by jumping off the bridge, but quickly changes her mind and hitches a ride from a stranger in a pickup truck. Before leaving, Forrest tells Jenny he's going to Vietnam; Jenny, now worried, advises Forrest that if he's ever scared in Vietnam to just run away. Forrest promises and Jenny leaves in the truck. Mrs. Gump sits with Forrest right before he leaves for Vietnam, asking that he returns home safely.
• June 3, 1967: Forrest travels to Vietnam with his fellow platoon-mate Bubba, where they meet Lieutenant Dan Taylor.
• June 7, 1967: After 7 days in Vietnam, Forrest's platoon is ambushed by Vietcong soldiers. While most of the platoon retreats, Forrest, Bubba, Dan, Tex and Cleveland stay and fight. The enemies blow up the two soldiers. Forrest eventually runs into the jungle, reaching a riverbank. He runs back to rescue the others. Bubba is shot and dies.
• September 7 to September 8, 1967: After 4/5 months in Vietnam, Forrest, Dan, and other soldiers are admitted to the army hospital.
• September 16, 1967: Forrest masters ping-pong, and begins playing it excessively during his stay in the hospital.
• June 6, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy dies from assassination.
• Early November, 1968: Forrest receives the Congressional Medal of Honor, while Lieutenant Dan is discharged and sent back to America. Forrest leaves two weeks later.
• November 19, 1968: President Lyndon Johnson awards Forrest the Medal of Honor. Later that day, Forrest gives a speech about war at a peace rally, then reunites with Jenny.
• November 20, 1968: Jenny leaves for Berkeley, California, leaving Forrest behind.
• July 20, 1969: Jenny begins a life of drugs and sex, while Forrest plays ping-pong as he teaches veterans as Neil Armstrong lands on the Moon.
• December 31, 1970 to January 1, 1971: Forrest becomes a national ping-pong champion. He travels to China where he plays against some of their ping-pong champions. When he returns, he goes on the Dick Cavett show with John Lennon, and goes to live with Lt. Dan, who is now retired from the Army.
• December 31, 1971: Forrest Gump is reunited with Lt. Dan in New York City, who is now a bitter alcoholic in a wheelchair. They go to the bar and watch The New Years Ball Drop. Forrest tells Dan of his shrimping boat because of the promise he made to Bubba. Dan jokingly say’s replies that if he becomes shrimping boat captain, he would be the first mate.
• January 1, 1972: Lt. Dan invites in two hookers Carla and Lenore into his hotel room. Lenore tries to kiss Forest only because she is pushed by him. Lenore calls Forest stupid. Enraged Lt. Dan angrily kicks out both of them, falling out of his wheelchair in the process. Forest offers to help but Dan refuses, climbing into his wheelchair himself. Lt. Dan wishes him a Happy New Year.
• May 15, 1972: Governor George Wallace is shot down in a crowd by Arthur Bremer
• June 15, 1972: President Richard Nixon awards Forrest the "U.S. Member of Table Tennis of the Year, 1971", while giving him a room in the Watergate Hotel.
• June 17, 1972: Forrest calls a security guard (Frank Wills) to report a supposed power outage in an office across his room.
• August 8, 1974: Nixon makes his resignation speech on TV, while Forrest is discharged from the Army, and returns to Greenbow, Alabama. While staying at his mother's boarding house, he finds a check of $25,000 left by a businessman who makes ping-pong paddles.
• August 11, 1974: Forrest meets Bubba's family to tell them of his deal with Bubba. Later, he visits Bubba's grave to tell him of his journey to China and his money that he will spend on a shrimping boat.
• August 12, 1974: Forrest purchases a shrimping boat and names it Jenny. Meanwhile, in California, Jenny almost commits suicide after taking drugs.
• August 13, 1974: Lt. Dan joins Forrest on his shrimping boat. After several failed attempts, Lt. Dan sarcastically tells Forrest to pray for the shrimp, which he does.
• August 29, 1974: Forrest and Lt. Dan steer through Hurricane Carmen.
• Early September, 1974: Forrest and Lt. Dan catch hundreds of shrimp, obtaining a monopoly in the shrimp industry.
• September 10, 1974: Forrest launches the Bubba Gump Shrimp Corporation with Lt. Dan. They are subsequently featured on hats and magazines.
• April 10, 1975: Forrest visits his dying mother.
• April 15, 1975: Mrs. Gump dies of cancer, and Forrest retires from shrimping, leaving his proceeds to Lt. Dan. Meanwhile, the Greenbow City Council gives Forrest a job mowing lawns.
• April 12, 1976: Lt. Dan invests his and Forrest's money in Apple Computers, and the two become wealthy.
• May 1, 1976: Construction on a church funded by Forrest begins.
• May 2, 1976: The Gump Medical Center opens.
• May 25, 1976: Forrest and Jenny Curran reunite.
• July 4, 1976: While watching the United States Bicentennial fireworks, Forrest asks Jenny to marry him, but she refuses. Later that night, they make love, conceiving Forrest Gump Jr.
• July 5, 1976: Jenny leaves Forrest again. On impulse, he goes out for a "little run". Eventually, he runs across America four times.
• March 13, 1977: Forrest Gump Jr is born.
• August 16, 1977: Elvis Presley dies.
• September 19, 1979: Forrest stops jogging throughout the country for the first time in three years.
• March 31, 1981: Forrest receives a letter from Jenny while watching the news covering Ronald Reagan's attempted assassination.
• April 1, 1981: Forrest Gump sits on a bench, relaying his story to others, including a nurse, a woman with a baby, an overweight man, and an elderly woman. The elderly woman tells Forrest where Jenny's house is. He meets Jenny and her son, Young Forrest, and Jenny tells him that he's his father.
• April 2, 1981: Jenny tells Forrest about her unknown disease. He offers to take care of her and Little Forrest. She asks him to marry her, and he agrees.
• April 26, 1981: Jenny and Forrest marry.
• April 28, 1981: Forrest tells Jenny about how he remembered her during his life in Vietnam, as a shrimper, and a national jogger.
• March 22, 1982: Jenny passes away from her disease.
• August 20, 1982: Forrest visits her grave, and gives her a letter from Little Forrest, where he wonders out loud if dying is a part of life, or if it's in our own destiny. He says goodbye to Jenny, and walks away from the gravestone.
• September 7, 1982: Little Forrest gets on his bus for his first day of school.