Timeline

A timeline of key events from the *Pirates of the Caribbean* trilogy. The films’ exact period is deliberately nebulous, but they are set roughly in the 1720s during the golden age of piracy.

## Timeline

### Distant Past

* In the days of myth and legend, the seas are ruled by the goddess Calypso. Davy Jones falls in love with Calypso, and she rewards that love by giving him the sacred task of ferrying souls who died at sea into the afterlife. He can only return to land once every ten years, and if this love is true to him, his task would be complete.
	+ However, Calypso is nowhere to be found when Davy Jones comes ashore to meet her. Heartbroken and bitter, Jones helps the Brethren Court imprison the sea goddess in human form, taming her wild fury and bringing the seas under their command.
	+ Davy Jones rips out his own heart and locks it away. As punishment for abandoning his job, Jones is cursed to a monstrous form. He captains the ghostly *Flying Dutchman*, offering sailors lost at sea the chance to join his crew—a fate that turns out to be worse than death.
* The murderous conqueror Cortez is offered a trove of 882 gold coins in the hopes of stopping his slaughter of the Aztec people. He takes the gold and betrays that agreement, slaying thousands more. The heathen gods place a curse on the gold as a punishment: any mortal who takes the gold is damned to a fate worse than hell.

### Age of Piracy

* Jack Sparrow, an honest seaman in the employ of the East India Trading Company, refuses to sail with a cargo of slaves for Cutler Beckett and instead releases them. Sparrow is marked with a pirate brand, and Beckett has his beloved ship torched and sunk to a watery grave.
	+ The *Black Pearl* is resurrected from the depths as a result of a deal made between Jack and Davy Jones. The agreement states that Jack will have 13 years to captain his ship, after which time Jones will get his soul.
* Jack is betrayed and abandoned by his crew in a mutiny led by Hector Barbossa. Left to die on a small island in the middle of the Caribbean, Jack escapes through mysterious circumstances, determined to retake his ship and get his revenge on Barbossa.
* Barbossa and his crew find the cursed Aztec treasure on Isla de Muerta and use it for their own pleasures. They soon discover that plundering the cursed gold has turned them into the living dead, forcing them to return all 882 pieces in order to lift the curse.
	+ Bootstrap Bill Turner is condemned to a doomed existence at the bottom of the ocean by Barbossa, unable to die as a result of the curse. He joins Davy Jones' crew in the hopes of escaping his fate, but he only trades one curse for another.
* The last piece of gold is found by young Elizabeth Swann around the neck of a young boy who is rescued at sea: Will Turner. It was a gift from Will's father, Bootstrap Bill Turner, who Will never knew was a pirate. Elizabeth and Will fall in love but never act on their feelings due to their difference in station once Will becomes a blacksmith.

### The Curse of the Black Pearl

* Ten years after the mutiny, Captain Barbossa and his cursed crew raid Port Royal, summoned by the call of the medallion. They kidnap Elizabeth, prompting Will Turner to put aside his hatred of pirates and enlist the help of Jack Sparrow. Together they commandeer the H.M.S. *Interceptor* and take off after the *Black Pearl*.
	+ Jack recruits Joshamee Gibbs to be his first mate among a new crew.
	+ The Aztec curse is lifted when the medallion is finally returned to the chest. Jack Sparrow shoots Barbossa in the chest just as the last piece of gold falls into place, killing him with the shot he had marooned Sparrow with.
	+ Despite his heroism, Jack Sparrow is sentenced to be hanged for piracy. However, when Will rescues him and Elizabeth stands by their side, Commodore Norrington stands down. Will and Elizabeth declare their love for each other, and Jack takes back command of the *Black Pearl*.

### After The Curse

* Barbossa's pet monkey Jack steals a cursed medallion from Isla de Muerta, granting him immortality again. He joins Jack Sparrow and his crew aboard the *Black Pearl*.
* Isla de Muerta vanishes into the sea, taking with it the cursed Aztec treasure. Tia Dalma recovers Barbossa's corpse and sets to work bringing him back from the dead.
* After letting Jack go, Norrington's efforts become obsessive and in trying to outrace the *Black Pearl*, suffers a devastating failure when he sails his ship into a hurricane. He retreats to Tortuga and becomes a drunk.

### Dead Man's Chest

* Although the curse of the *Black Pearl* had been lifted, the peace was not to last. Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company arrived in town with arrest warrants for Will and Elizabeth. Once again, they were forced to join forces with Jack Sparrow to get out of trouble.
* Cursed by the mark of Davy Jones, Jack Sparrow must find a way to avoid eternal servitude on the *Flying Dutchman.* The only hope of saving himself lay in finding a mysterious chest—and the beating heart within it.
* In the end, Jones' terrible sea beast—the Kraken—finally caught up to Jack and dragged him to the depths of Davy Jones' Locker (after Elizabeth chained him to the mast so he could not get away). Elizabeth, Will, and the rest of Jack's crew went to see the mystic Tia Dalma, who had brought Barbossa back to life. Together, the unlikely crew began another journey—one that would take them to World's End and beyond.

### At World's End

* Trapped on a sea of sand in Davy Jones' Locker, Jack Sparrow was the last of the Pirate Lords of the Brethren Court who must unite in one final stand to preserve the freedom-loving pirates' way of life. With Davy Jones at Lord Beckett's command, the East India Trading Company was wiping out pirates all across the Caribbean and the world.