Karl Marx Timeline

(May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883)

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, and revolutionary socialist whose critique of capitalism and theories of historical materialism profoundly influenced modern social science and political movements worldwide. More Less

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Early Life and Education

Birth of Karl Marx in Trier, Prussia

May 5, 1818

Karl Heinrich Marx was born in Trier, then part of the Prussian Rhineland, to a middle-class Jewish family. His father, Heinrich Marx, was a lawyer who converted to Lutheranism, a decision that shaped Karl's upbringing in an increasingly assimilated household.

Image source: Karl Marx

Marx baptized into the Lutheran Church

1824

At the age of six, Karl Marx was baptized along with his siblings into the Evangelical Established Church of Prussia, following his father's conversion. This gave him formal membership in the state church and access to education that might otherwise have been restricted.

Graduation from Trier Gymnasium

1835

Marx completed his secondary schooling at the Trier Gymnasium at age seventeen. In his graduation essay, 'Reflections of a Young Man on the Choice of a Profession,' he expressed idealistic ambitions to work for the welfare of humanity.

Studies at the University of Bonn

Oct 1835 - 1836

Marx began studying law at the University of Bonn at his father's insistence. He spent much of his time socializing, drinking, and dueling, and his father grew increasingly concerned about his son's unruly behavior.

Image source: University of Bonn

Studies at the University of Berlin

Oct 1836 - 1841

Marx transferred to the University of Berlin, where he immersed himself in philosophy, particularly the works of G.W.F. Hegel. He joined the Young Hegelians, a group of radical thinkers who applied Hegel's dialectical methods to critique religion and Prussian politics.

Image source: Humboldt University of Berlin

Receives doctorate from University of Jena

Apr 1841

Marx submitted his dissertation comparing the natural philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus to the University of Jena, which awarded him a doctorate. The work showed his early materialist leanings and his engagement with ancient Greek thought.

Image source: The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature

Personal Life and Legacy

Engagement to Jenny von Westphalen

1836 - Jun 19, 1843

Marx became secretly engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, daughter of Baron Ludwig von Westphalen, a Prussian nobleman seven years his senior. Despite her aristocratic family's reservations about the penniless young radical, they married in June 1843.

Image source: Jenny von Westphalen

Marriage to Jenny von Westphalen

Jun 19, 1843

Karl and Jenny married in Kreuznach after a seven-year engagement. Jenny remained Marx's devoted companion, secretary, and intellectual partner throughout his turbulent life despite poverty, exile, and repeated personal tragedies.

Death of wife Jenny Marx

Dec 2, 1881

Jenny Marx died of cancer at the age of sixty-seven after decades of hardship alongside her husband. Her death devastated Marx, whose own health declined rapidly afterward as he suffered bronchitis and abscesses.

Death of eldest daughter Jenny Longuet

Jan 9, 1883

Marx's eldest daughter Jenny died of cancer of the bladder just weeks before her father's death, compounding his grief. Marx never recovered emotionally from the loss of his beloved daughter.

Image source: Jenny Longuet

Death of Karl Marx in London

Mar 14, 1883

Karl Marx died peacefully in his armchair at his home in Hampstead, London, aged sixty-four, having succumbed to bronchitis and pleurisy. He was buried three days later at Highgate Cemetery beside his wife.

Funeral at Highgate Cemetery

Mar 17, 1883

Only eleven mourners attended Marx's funeral at Highgate Cemetery, where Engels delivered a eulogy declaring that Marx's name and work would endure through the ages. The modest graveside gathering belied the enormous future influence of his ideas.

Image source: Highgate Cemetery

Journalism and Political Activism

Editorship at the Rheinische Zeitung

Oct 1842 - Mar 18, 1843

Marx became editor-in-chief of the liberal Cologne newspaper Rheinische Zeitung, where he published critiques of censorship, Prussian absolutism, and the economic condition of the Moselle peasantry. The paper was suppressed by Prussian authorities in 1843.

Image source: Rheinische Zeitung

Move to Paris and editorship of Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher

Oct 1843 - 1844

After the suppression of the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx moved to Paris with his new wife to co-edit the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher with Arnold Ruge. Only one double issue appeared before the partnership collapsed over ideological differences.

Image source: Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher

Meeting with Friedrich Engels in Paris

Aug 28, 1844

Marx met Friedrich Engels at the Café de la Régence in Paris, beginning one of history's most consequential intellectual partnerships. They discovered they shared identical views and embarked on nearly four decades of collaboration.

Image source: Friedrich Engels

Expulsion from France and move to Brussels

Feb 1845

Prussian pressure led French authorities to expel Marx in early 1845. He relocated to Brussels with Jenny and their young daughter, renouncing his Prussian citizenship and settling into a period of intense theoretical work.

Founding of the Communist Correspondence Committee

Feb 1846

Marx and Engels established the Communist Correspondence Committee in Brussels to link socialist groups across Europe. This network helped lay the organizational groundwork for the Communist League founded the following year.

Image source: Communist League

Joining and reorganizing the Communist League

Jun 1847

The League of the Just merged with Marx's correspondence committee network to form the Communist League. At its London congresses, the League adopted Marx's motto 'Workers of the world, unite!' and commissioned him and Engels to write its manifesto.

Return to Germany during the Revolutions of 1848

Apr 1848 - Aug 1849

With revolution sweeping Europe, Marx returned to Cologne and edited the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a radical daily advocating democratic revolution and unification of Germany. The paper's final issue, printed in red, appeared after Marx was ordered expelled again.

Image source: Neue Rheinische Zeitung

Exile in London begins

Aug 1849 - 1883

After brief stops in Paris, Marx settled permanently in London, where he lived the rest of his life in exile. He endured severe poverty, the deaths of several children, and dependence on Engels' financial support while developing his economic theories.

Major Works

Publication of 'On the Jewish Question'

1843

In this essay, Marx critiqued Bruno Bauer's views on political emancipation and argued that true human emancipation required more than religious or civil liberty. The work marked an important stage in Marx's break from Young Hegelian idealism.

Image source: On the Jewish Question

Publication of 'Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'

1844

Known as the Paris Manuscripts, these notebooks introduced Marx's theory of alienated labor under capitalism. Unpublished during his lifetime, they became hugely influential among twentieth-century humanist interpreters of Marxism.

Image source: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Publication of 'The Holy Family'

Feb 1845

Co-authored with Engels, this book attacked the Young Hegelians, particularly Bruno Bauer, and signaled Marx's decisive turn toward historical materialism and the central role of the working class in revolutionary change.

Image source: The Holy Family (book)

Writing of 'Theses on Feuerbach' and 'The German Ideology'

Apr 1845 - 1846

In Brussels, Marx composed the famous Theses on Feuerbach and, with Engels, wrote The German Ideology, which first systematically expounded the materialist conception of history: that economic conditions shape society, politics, and ideas.

Image source: The German Ideology

Publication of 'The Communist Manifesto'

Feb 21, 1848

Written by Marx and Engels for the Communist League, this pamphlet declared that all history is the history of class struggles and called for proletarian revolution. It appeared just days before the outbreak of revolutions across Europe and became one of the most influential political texts ever written.

Image source: The Communist Manifesto

Publication of 'The Communist Manifesto'

Writing of 'The Class Struggles in France' and 'The Eighteenth Brumaire'

1850 - 1852

Analyzing the failed Revolution of 1848 and Napoleon III's coup, Marx developed influential concepts about class politics, the state, and Bonapartism. The Eighteenth Brumaire famously observed that history repeats itself, 'the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.'

Image source: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Work in the British Museum reading room on Capital

1850 - 1867

Marx spent years conducting exhaustive research in economics at the British Museum, studying classical economists, factory reports, and statistics. This research formed the basis of Das Kapital, his monumental critique of capitalist production.

Image source: Das Kapital

Key Facts

Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in Trier, Prussia (present-day Germany), to a middle-class Jewish family that converted to Lutheranism.
In 1848, Marx co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels, one of the most influential political documents in history.
Marx spent much of his life in exile, living in Paris, Brussels, and finally London from 1849 until his death.
His major work Das Kapital (Capital), a critical analysis of capitalism, was first published in 1867; volumes two and three were published posthumously by Engels.
Marx died on March 14, 1883, in London, where he is buried at Highgate Cemetery, and his ideas became the foundation of Marxism, influencing revolutions across the globe.

Source

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