May 28, 1928 Kevorkian is born in Pontiac, Michigan, the son of Armenian immigrants. 1952 Graduates from University of Michigan medical school with a specialty in pathology. 1956 Publishes journal article, "The Fundus Oculi and the Determination of Death," discussing his efforts to photograph the eyes of dying patients, a practice that earned him the nickname "Doctor Death." December 1958 Presents paper at meeting in Washington, D.C., advocating medical experimentation on consenting convicts during executions. Embarrassed, University of Michigan officials ask Kevorkian to leave his residency there. 1961 Publishes article in The American Journal of Clinical Pathology detailing his experiments on transfusing blood from cadavers to live patients. 1970 Becomes chief pathologist at Saratoga General Hospital in Detroit. Late 1970s Quits pathology career, travels to California, and invests life savings in directing and producing a feature movie based on Handel's "Messiah." With no distributor, the movie flops. 1980s Publishes numerous articles in the obscure German journal Medicine and Lawoutlining his ideas on euthanasia and ethics. 1987 Advertises in Detroit papers as a "physician consultant" for "death counseling." 1988 Kevorkian's article, "The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death," is published in Medicine and Law. In it, he outlines his proposed system of planned deaths in suicide clinics, including medical experimentation on patients. 1989 Using $30 worth of scrap parts scrounged from garage sales and hardware stores, Kevorkian builds his "suicide machine" at the kitchen table of his Royal Oak, Michigan, apartment. June 4, 1990 Kevorkian is present at the death of Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old Portland, Oregon, woman with Alzheimer's disease. Her death using the "suicide machine" occurs in Kevorkian's 1968 Volkswagen van in Groveland Oaks Park near Holly, Michigan. June 8, 1990 An Oakland County Circuit Court Judge enjoins Kevorkian from aiding in any suicides. December 12, 1990District Court Judge Gerald McNally dismisses murder charge against Kevorkian in death of Adkins. October 23, 1991Kevorkian attends the deaths of Marjorie Wantz, a 58-year-old Sodus, Michigan, woman with pelvic pain, and Sherry Miller, a 43-year-old Roseville, Michigan, woman with multiple sclerosis. The deaths occur at a rented state park cabin near Lake Orion, Michigan. Wantz dies from the suicide machine's lethal drugs, Miller from carbon monoxide poisoning inhaled through a face mask. November 20, 1991 The state Board of Medicine summarily revokes Kevorkian's license to practice medicine in Michigan. May 15, 1992 Susan Williams, a 52-year-old woman with multiple sclerosis, dies from carbon monoxide poisoning in her home in Clawson, Michigan. July 21, 1992 Oakland County Circuit Court Judge David Breck dismisses charges against Kevorkian in deaths of Miller and Wantz. Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson appeals. September 26, 1992 Lois Hawes, 52, a Warren, Michigan, woman with lung and brain cancer, dies from carbon monoxide poisoning at the home of Kevorkian's assistant Neal Nicol in Waterford Township, Michigan. November 23, 1992 Catherine Andreyev of Moon Township, Pennsylvania, dies in Nicol's home. She was 45 and had cancer. Hers is the first of 10 deaths Kevorkian attends over the next three months; all die from inhaling carbon monoxide. December 3, 1992 The Michigan Legislature passes a ban on assisted suicide to take effect on March 30, 1993. February 15, 1993 Hugh Gale, a 70-year-old man with emphysema and congestive heart disease, dies in his Roseville home. Prosecutors investigate after Right-to-Life advocates find papers that show Kevorkian altered his account of Gale's death, deleting a reference to a request by Gale to halt the procedure. February 25, 1993 Michigan Governor John Engler signs the legislation banning assisted suicide. It makes aiding in a suicide a four-year felony but allows law to expire after a blue-ribbon commission studies permanent legislation. April 27, 1993 A California law judge suspends Kevorkian's medical license after a request from that state's medical board. August 4, 1993 Thomas Hyde, a 30-year-old Novi, Michigan, man with ALS, is found dead in Kevorkian's van on Belle Isle, a Detroit park. September 9, 1993 Hours after a judge orders him to stand trial in Hyde's death, Kevorkian is present at the death of cancer patient Donald O'Keefe, 73, in Redford Township, Michigan. November 5-8, 1993 Kevorkian fasts in Detroit jail after refusing to post $20,000 bond in case involving Hyde's death. November 29, 1993 Kevorkian begins fast in Oakland County jail for refusing to post $50,000 bond after being charged in the October death of Merian Frederick, 72. December 17, 1993 Kevorkian ends fast and leaves jail after Oakland County Circuit Court Judge reduces bond to $100 in exchange for his vow not to assist in any more suicides until state courts resolve the legality of his practice. January 27, 1994 Circuit Court Judge dismisses charges against Kevorkian in two deaths, becoming the fifth lower court judge in Michigan to rule that assisted suicide is a constitutional right.
May 2, 1994 A Detroit jury acquits Kevorkian of charges he violated the state's assisted suicide ban in the death of Thomas Hyde.
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May 10, 1994 The Michigan Court of Appeals strikes down the state's ban on assisted suicide on the grounds it was enacted unlawfully.
November 8, 1994Oregon becomes the first state to legalize assisted suicide when voters pass a tightly restricted Death with Dignity Act. But legal appeals keep the law from taking effect.
November 26, 1994 Hours after Michigan's ban on assisted suicide expires, 72-year-old Margaret Garrish dies of carbon monoxide poisoning in her home in Royal Oak. She had arthritis and osteoporosis. Kevorkian is not present when police arrive.
December 13, 1994 The Michigan Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Michigan's 1993-94 ban on assisted suicide and also rules assisted suicide is illegal in Michigan under common law. The ruling reinstates cases against Kevorkian in four deaths.
June 26, 1995 Kevorkian opens a "suicide clinic" in an office in Springfield Township, Michigan. Erika Garcellano, a 60-year-old Kansas City, Missouri, woman with ALS, is the first client. A few days later, the building's owner kicks out Kevorkian.
September 14, 1995 Kevorkian arrives at the Oakland County Courthouse in Pontiac, Michigan in homemade stocks with ball and chain. He is ordered to stand trial for assisting in the 1991 suicides of Sherry Miller and Marjorie Wantz.
October 30, 1995 A group of doctors and other medical experts in Michigan announces its support of Kevorkian, saying they will draw up a set of guiding principles for the "merciful, dignified, medically-assisted termination of life."
February 1, 1996New England Journal of Medicine publishes massive studies of physicians attitudes towards doctor-assisted suicide in Oregon and Michigan. Studies demonstrate that a large number of physicians surveyed support, in some conditions, doctor-assisted suicide.
March 6, 1996The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rules that mentally competent, terminally ill adults have a constitutional right to aid in dying from doctors, health care workers and family members. It is the first time a federal appeals court endorses assisted suicide.
March 8, 1996A jury acquits Kevorkian in two deaths.
March 20, 1996Representative Dave Camp (R-MI), introduces a bill in the U.S. House to prohibit tax-payer funding of assisted suicide.
April 1,1996Trial begins in Kevorkian's home town of Pontiac in the deaths of Miller and Wantz. For the start of his third criminal trial, he wears colonial costume--tights, a white powdered wig, and big buckle shoes--a protest against the fact that he is being tried under centuries-old common law. He would face a maximum of five years in prison and a $10, 000 fine if convicted in the Wantz/Miller deaths. On May 14, 1996 the jury acquitted him.
November 4, 1996Kevorkian's lawyer announces a previously unreported assisted suicide of a 54-year-old woman. This brings the total number of his assisted suicides, since 1990, to 46.
June 12, 1997In Kevorkian's fourth trial, a judge declares a mistrial. The case is later dropped.
June 26, 1997The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that state governments have the right to outlaw doctor-assisted suicide. The Court had been asked to decide whether state laws banning the practice in New York and Washington were unconstitutional.
November 5, 1997Oregon residents vote to uphold the state's assisted suicide law, the first of its kind in the nation. The law allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients.
March 14, 1998This day marks Kevorkian's 100th assisted suicide, involving a 66-year-old Detroit man.
September 1, 1998Michigan's second law outlawing physician-assisted suicide goes into effect.
November 3, 1998Michigan voters reject a proposal to legalize physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. November 22, 1998CBS's "60 Minutes" airs a videotape showing Kevorkian giving a lethal injection to Thomas Youk, 52, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease. The broadcast triggers an intense debate within medical, legal and media circles.
November 24, 1998Michigan charges Kevorkian with first-degree murder, violating the assisted suicide law and delivering a controlled substance without a license in the death of Youk. Prosecutors later drop the suicide charge. Kevorkian insists on defending himself during the trial and threatens to starve himself if he is sent to jail. Kevorkian and longtime attorney Geoffrey Fieger officially split up over disagreeance of Kevorkian representing himself as his own lawyer.
April 13, 1999 Oakland County Circuit Judge Jessica Cooper sentences Kevorkian to 10 to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder and three to seven years for delivery of a controlled substance.
Nov. 12, 1999 Kevorkian appeals conviction to Michigan Court of Appeals.
March 15, 2000Kevorkian gets receives Civil Activist Award from the Gleitsman Foundation as he awaits for court appeal date.
Aug. 24, 2000 Cooper denies a request to consider releasing Kevorkian on bond pending the appeal of his conviction.
Nov. 21, 2001 More than 2 1/2 years after Kevorkian's second-degree murder conviction, a three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals unanimously affirms the conviction and declines his request for a new trial.
April 10, 2002 The Michigan Supreme Court, in a 6-1 decision, refuses to review the Court of Appeals decision.
July 17, 2002 Kevorkian asks the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his murder conviction and uphold the right to help a terminally ill and suffering patient to die. Oct. 7, 2002 The U.S. Supreme Court announces that it will not consider Kevorkian's case.
Oct. 1, 2003 A U.S. District Court judge in Detroit denies a petition seeking Kevorkian's release.
Oct. 6, 2003 Attorney Geoffrey Fieger says he is renewing his representation of Kevorkian for the first time in five years, saying the assisted suicide proponent should be released from prison and resentenced to time served.
Dec. 1, 2003 An Oakland County judge denies a motion filed by Fieger asking that Kevorkian be released from prison and resentenced to time served. Nov. 1, 2004 The U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, rejects another appeal by Kevorkian for a new trial.
Dec. 7, 2004 The Michigan Parole Board says it will not act on a request from Kevorkian to recommend to Gov. Jennifer Granholm that she grant him parole or commute his sentence. The board says the request is essentially the same one that Granholm rejected a year ago.
Dec. 22, 2005 Despite reports that Kevorkian's health is failing, the parole board votes to recommend that Granholm deny his application for a commuted sentence or a pardon.
June 22, 2006 The parole board rejects Kevorkian's claim that he has less than a year to live and so should have his second-degree murder sentence commuted. The matter does not go to the governor.
Dec. 13, 2006 The Michigan Department of Corrections announces that Kevorkian will be paroled on June 1, 2007.
- June 1, 2007 Kevorkian leaves prison, saying the release was "wonderful -- one of the high points in life."
- Nov. 4, 2008 Kevorkian receives 2.7 percent of the vote in his independent bid for Congress in a suburban Detroit district.
- April 24, 2010 HBO biographical movie "You Don't Know Jack" debuts, featuring Al Pacino as Kevorkian; Brenda Vaccaro as Kevorkian's stalwart sister, Margo; John Goodman as his equally loyal friend, Neal Nicol; Danny Huston, playing flamboyant attorney Geoffrey Fieger; and Susan Sarandon as Hemlock Society activist Janet Good.
- Aug. 30, 2010 Pacino wins Emmy as best lead actor in a miniseries or movie for "You Don't Know Jack."
- May 18, 2011 Kevorkian hospitalized for pneumonia and kidney problems.
- June 3, 2011 Kevorkian dies at age 83 at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., after a short illness.