When we read we do not have a visual help of how it would be like with time. We could think that someone was alive but that person could have already died or maybe he/she would maybe not even have been born yet when a certain event happened. The timeline, then, helps us with this. It shows us and helps us to visualize events and to see how things would be like they were. We could maybe think ” Why did that person not interfere with that war?”, but actually that person was dead. So the timeline shows you how to not commit these mistakes and helps you with that.