The World Before the Fall: A Fragile Peace

Humanity’s last bastion lived behind concentric Walls—Maria, Rose, and Sina—for a century of uneasy calm. Within Wall Sheena, the interior prospered while the outer districts faced constant Titan pressure. The Survey Corps ventured beyond the walls to reclaim lost land, but each expedition returned with catastrophic losses. Few believed the walls could ever be breached, and the Titans remained a distant, terrifying mystery. This fragile peace shattered in a single afternoon, setting the stage for an era of apocalyptic warfare that would redefine the meaning of freedom. Understanding the Attack on Titan timeline is essential to grasping the cascading consequences of that day, from the fall of Wall Maria to the final battle that decided the fate of all Eldians.

The Fall of Wall Maria (Year 845)

In the year 845, the unthinkable happened: the Colossal Titan, a towering figure of skinless muscle and steaming heat, materialized above Wall Maria’s outer gate. Its kick sent a shockwave through Shiganshina District, instantly creating a breach that allowed a flood of Pure Titans to pour into human territory. Moments later, the Armored Titan barreled through the inner gate, sealing the district’s doom. Eren Yeager watched in horror as his mother was trapped beneath the rubble of their home and devoured by a smiling Titan. This single event ignited his burning desire for vengeance and set a generation on a path of violence and sacrifice.

  • Year 845: Colossal Titan appears and breaches Wall Maria’s outer gate.
  • Year 845: Armored Titan destroys the inner gate, allowing Titans to overrun Shiganshina and the entire Wall Maria territory.
  • Year 845: Mass evacuation to Wall Rose; an estimated 250,000 civilians are sent to die in a desperate attempt to alleviate food shortages, later known as the “Shiganshina Sacrifice.”
  • Year 845: Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert survive and begin their journey toward the military.

The fall was not just a military disaster—it was a cultural trauma. Refugees flooded Wall Rose, resources dwindled, and the myth of absolute safety crumbled. The loss of one-third of humanity’s territory overnight became the grim foundation for every military decision that followed.

The Aftermath: Fortifying the Remaining Walls (Year 846–847)

With Wall Maria gone, the remaining population was forced to retool its entire survival strategy. The Survey Corps faced public scorn for its perceived failure, but Commander Keith Shadis redoubled training efforts and devised new long-range scouting formations to minimize casualties. Meanwhile, the Garrison Regiment strengthened Wall Rose’s gate defenses, and the Military Police Brigade tightened its grip on the interior, often prioritizing noble comfort over human life.

  • Year 846: The Survey Corps adopts the Long-Distance Enemy Scouting Formation, improving regeneration of leadership cadres and survival rates beyond the walls.
  • Year 846: A second massive culling of refugees begins, with desperate families pressed into a suicidal mission to reclaim Wall Maria, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and further eroding public trust in the monarchy.
  • Year 847: Eren, Mikasa, and Armin enlist in the 104th Training Corps, joining recruits like Jean Kirstein, Sasha Blouse, Connie Springer, Reiner Braun, Bertholdt Hoover, and Annie Leonhart—names that would later define the war.

During this period, the three friends forged an unbreakable bond. Eren’s Titan-killing obsession grew alongside Mikasa’s protective instincts and Armin’s strategic brilliance. Though they did not yet know the truth, the seeds of the future conflict were already planted among them.

The Rise of Eren Yeager and the Titan-Shifting Revelation

The year 847 marked the start of active engagements that would reveal the world’s most guarded secrets. The 104th Training Corps graduated and was immediately thrust into combat when the Colossal Titan appeared again, this time at Trost District. In the ensuing chaos, Eren was swallowed whole by a bearded Titan—but instead of dying, he emerged from its nape as the mysterious Attack Titan, slaughtering the surrounding Pure Titans with berserk fury. This was the first public demonstration of a human controlling Titan power, and it changed not just the battle but the entire paradigm of the conflict.

  • Year 847: During the Battle of Trost, Eren transforms for the first time, using his Titan form to plug the breach in Wall Rose with a massive boulder.
  • Year 847: The military places Eren under the custody of the Special Operations Squad—Captain Levi, Eld Jinn, Gunther Schultz, Petra Ral, and Oluo Bozado—to study and control his shifting ability.
  • Year 848: The first successful military operation utilizing a Titan shifter is planned: a mission to reclaim Wall Maria through the sealed Trost gate, using Eren’s hardening ability to repair the outer districts.

Eren’s transformation was a double-edged sword. It offered hope for reclaiming lost territory but also exposed him to intense political manipulation. The interior regime, the mysterious Reiss family, and foreign powers all began maneuvering to capture the “Progenitor Titan” they believed Eren possessed—a power that remained locked deep within his mind.

The Battle for Trost and the Awakening of a New Generation

The Battle of Trost District was the crucible in which the protagonists became soldiers. When Wall Rose’s gate was shattered, the 104th cadets faced murderous Pure Titans with only half their number surviving. Armin’s quick thinking saved his friends multiple times, Sasha and Connie showed instinctual survival skills, and Jean began evolving from self-centered ambition to genuine leadership. However, it was Mikasa’s lethal grace and Eren’s Titan emergence that turned the tide. The operation to seal the breach required flawless coordination between the Garrison and Survey Corps, and its success gave humanity its first offensive victory in a century.

  • Year 847: Trost District becomes a Titan-infested death trap; the 104th loses over 20% of its strength in the initial hours.
  • Year 847: Eren, in his Attack Titan form, carries a massive boulder from the district outskirts and seals the hole, ending the immediate threat.
  • Year 847: Commander Erwin Smith of the Survey Corps leverages the victory to secure custody of Eren and proposes a full-scale operation to retake Shiganshina.

The triumph at Trost was bittersweet. The military learned that Titans are former humans—a truth discovered by Hange Zoë after capturing Sawney and Bean. This revelation sent philosophical shockwaves through the ranks and deepened the mystery of Titan origins.

The Secrets of the Titans Begin to Unravel (Year 849–850)

Following Trost, the Survey Corps launched the 57th Exterior Scouting Expedition beyond the walls, aiming to map a new route to Shiganshina. The mission was a trap: the Female Titan, actually the cadet Annie Leonhart, systematically hunted and slaughtered elite soldiers, including most of Levi’s Special Operations Squad. Eren was captured and nearly abducted, but Levi and Mikasa rescued him, forcing Annie to crystallize herself deep beneath the capital. This tragedy revealed that the Titans among them were not mythical monsters; they were infiltrators with their own dark agenda.

  • Year 849: Eren learns of the existence of other intelligent Titan shifters after engaging the Female Titan in the Forest of Giant Trees.
  • Year 850: The truth about the walls is exposed: they are composed of dormant Colossal Titans, hidden in hardened shells, permanently facing inward. This revelation is whispered by a Titan inside Wall Rose, leading to mass panic.
  • Year 850: The Survey Corps captures Annie Leonhart in Stohess District after a devastating urban battle that kills hundreds of civilians and exposes the military’s willingness to sacrifice anything for intel.

The discovery that the very walls were made of Titans shattered all preconceptions. Pastor Nick of the Wall Cult knew the secret and was murdered for it, pushing Hange and the Survey Corps deeper into the conspiracy. The royal government was clearly hiding more than anyone could have imagined.

The Clash of the Titans: Betrayal and Revelation

With Annie neutralized, the remaining Titan shifters among the 104th—Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover—were forced into the open. During the Defense of Utgard Castle, where Zeke Yeager’s Beast Titan appeared for the first time, Reiner’s mental fractures led him to confess his identity as the Armored Titan to Eren. The subsequent race to rescue Eren from the giant forest, where Reiner and Bertholdt tried to flee with him, culminated in a desperate battle atop the Colossal Titan’s smoldering form. The Survey Corps suffered devastating losses—Commander Erwin lost his arm, and Hannes, the soldier who had saved Eren as a child, was devoured by the same Smiling Titan that killed Carla Yeager.

  • Year 850: Battle against the Female Titan in Stohess; Annie is crystallized and captured.
  • Year 851: The Survey Corps confronts the Armored and Colossal Titans on Wall Rose’s border, attempting to prevent them from escaping with Eren. The encounter reveals Zeke Yeager as the War Chief.
  • Year 851: Eren unleashes the power of the Attack Titan to battle Reiner’s Armored Titan in a brutal hand-to-hand fight, while Mikasa and the others take on Bertholdt’s Colossal Titan with Thunder Spears.

These battles ended with no clear victor. The shifters escaped, leaving the Survey Corps to bury their dead and prepare for the inevitable confrontation at Shiganshina. The secret of the Titans was no longer a distant legend; it was a war being waged across generations.

The Uprising and the Truth of the Reiss Family

Political upheaval within Wall Sina forced the Survey Corps into open rebellion. The true ruler of the walls, Rod Reiss, the last surviving member of the true Fritz bloodline, had been manipulating the puppet king for a century. When the Military Police’s Anti-Personnel Control Squad attempted to silence Erwin and the Survey Corps, the ensuing coup deposed the old regime. Levi, Hange, and their allies stormed the Reiss chapel, where Historia Reiss was forced to confront her destiny. She refused to become a Titan and inherit the Progenitor Titan from her father, instead smashing the Titan injection and choosing to fight alongside Eren.

  • Year 851: Erwin Smith is sentenced to death by the royal government but is broken out by his loyalists, triggering a full-scale uprising.
  • Year 851: Historia Reiss is proclaimed the true queen of the walls, ending the noble dictatorship and bringing transparency to the military.
  • Year 851: Eren learns the full history of the Titans: Ymir Fritz made a deal with the “source of all living matter” and became the first Titan, her soul splintered into the Nine Titan powers. The walls were built by Karl Fritz using millions of Colossal Titans, and the Progenitor Titan can command them all—the Rumbling.

This arc forced every character to confront the weight of history. The walls were not protections; they were cages built by a self-loathing king who had stripped his people of their memories. The truth galvanized Eren’s conviction to reach the basement in Shiganshina and unlock the final piece of the puzzle.

Return to Shiganshina and the Ocean

The long-awaited operation to retake Wall Maria became the bloodiest single battle in the Survey Corps’ history. Erwin led a suicide charge against the Beast Titan’s devastating throws, giving Levi the opening to slice Zeke to ribbons. Armin executed a plan to neutralize Bertholdt’s Colossal Titan, sacrificing himself in the process, and was saved only by the last Titan serum, becoming the inheritor of the Colossal Titan. In the basement of the Yeager house, the truth was finally revealed: the world beyond the walls was alive, technologically advanced, and it hated the Eldians with genocidal fervor. After clearing the Titans, the Survey Corps reached the sea for the first time—a moment of bittersweet wonder, overshadowed by Eren’s haunting question: “If we kill all our enemies over there, will we finally be free?”

  • Year 851: Battle of Shiganshina District: Erwin Smith dies, Levi defeats the Beast Titan, Hange neutralizes the Cart Titan, and Armin consumes Bertholdt to become the Colossal Titan.
  • Year 851: The basement journals of Grisha Yeager detail the outside world: Marley, the Eldian race, the eternal hatred, and the path Grisha took to reach Paradis as a restorationist.
  • Year 851: The surviving Survey Corps members reach the ocean, only to realize that the “freedom” they dreamed of was just a landscape for another war.

The World Beyond: Marley and the Mid-East War

After the time skip, Marley was locked in a devastating four-year war with the Mid-East Allied Forces, who had developed anti-Titan artillery capable of wounding the Armored and Beast Titans. This conflict proved that Titans were losing their dominance as weapons of war, increasing Marley’s desperation to capture the Progenitor Titan on Paradis Island. The Warriors—Reiner, Zeke, Pieck, Porco Galliard (the new Jaw Titan), and the child soldier Falco Grice—returned home hollowed out and traumatized. Meanwhile, on Paradis, Eren had infiltrated Marley in secret, observing the world that condemned his people to extermination on official timelines compiled by the fandom.

  • Year 854: Eren Yeager, using the false identity “Kruger,” infiltrates Liberio and poses as a wounded veteran to gather intelligence on Marley’s warrior program.
  • Year 854: Marley’s brutal war with the Mid-East Alliance ends with the fall of Fort Slava, but the conflict accelerates global anti-Titan technology development.

The stage was set for an irreversible collision. Willy Tybur, the true ruler of Marley and a descendant of the hero Helos, planned a grand festival in Liberio to unite the world against Paradis, unaware that Eren was already there, waiting.

The Raid on Liberio and the Declaration of War

At the climax of the Liberio festival, Eren transformed into the Attack Titan beneath the stage where Willy Tybur declared war on Paradis. In a single, calculated assault, he devoured Willy and crushed the gathered world leaders and military officials. The Survey Corps, arriving via airship, launched a coordinated strike to extract Eren, while Levi engaged Zeke in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. The battle became a massacre, with Eren consuming the War Hammer Titan (Lara Tybur) and Jean, Mikasa, and Sasha fighting off Marley’s Panzer Unit and the Jaw Titan. The operation succeeded, but the cost was catastrophic: Sasha Blouse was shot and killed by Gabi Braun, a young Warrior candidate, tightening the cycle of revenge.

  • Year 854: Eren kills Willy Tybur and the world’s dignitaries, marking Paradis as an enemy of humanity. The war against the entire world becomes inevitable.
  • Year 854: The Survey Corps returns to Paradis with the power of the War Hammer Titan, but Sasha dies, fracturing the unity among the veterans.
  • Year 854: Zeke Yeager is taken into custody on Paradis, secretly planning to use the Progenitor Titan’s power to enact a euthanasia plan for all Eldians.

This was the point of no return. Eren’s actions had forced Paradis into a corner, and the only options remaining were the total extermination of the island or the activation of the Rumbling. The timeline of the series, as chronicled in sources like Crunchyroll’s episode guides, accelerated into its darkest phase.

The War for Paradis and the Rumbling

Convinced that only absolute annihilation could save Paradis, Eren turned on his friends. He manipulated the Yeagerist faction to overthrow the Paradis military, imprisoned his allies, and forced Zeke into contact to unlock the Progenitor Titan’s full power. In the Paths realm, Eren bypassed Zeke and convinced Ymir Fritz—the founder trapped for eternity—to lend him her strength. The Wall Titans were unhardened, and the earth shook as a column of millions of Colossal Titans began to march across the ocean, flattening continents in a bid to wipe out all life beyond the island.

  • Year 857: Eren initiates the Rumbling, unleashing the tens of millions of Titans within the walls and beginning a global genocide that kills over 80% of humanity’s population within days.
  • Year 857: A coalition of former enemies—Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Conny, Levi, Reiner, Pieck, Annie, and Falco (now possessing the Jaw Titan with bird-like wings)—unites to confront Eren’s founding Titan form in the desolate plains of Marley.

The final battle was not a clash of nations but a philosophical duel between Eren’s monstrous freedom and the hope of a world beyond hatred. Every survivor carried the weight of lost comrades: Erwin, Hange, Sasha, and countless others who had believed in a different tomorrow.

The Final Battle and the End of the Titan Curse

The decisive confrontation took place atop the spine of Eren’s Founding Titan, an eldritch skeleton that crawled over the scorched earth. Armin, in his Colossal Titan form, fought to destroy Eren’s defenses while Mikasa, wielding her blades with surgical precision, plunged into the Titan’s mouth and severed Eren’s head. In that instant, Ymir Fritz watched and finally understood that love did not have to mean eternal servitude; her curse was broken. The Power of the Titans vanished from the world, every Pure Titan reverted to human, and the surviving shifters were stripped of their abilities.

  • Year 857: Mikasa Ackerman kills Eren Yeager, ending the Rumbling and the era of Titans forever.
  • Year 857: Ymir Fritz releases the Paths, and all Titan powers are erased from the world. The Colossal Titans turn to dust, and the remaining Eldians are freed from the cycle of transformation.
  • Year 857: The Battle of Heaven and Earth concludes with only a fraction of humanity left, but the seed of peace is planted. Historia Reiss raises her child away from the bloodshed, and the surviving heroes, including Armin and the others, return to Paradis to face a world that now must rebuild from near-extinction.

In the aftermath, the timeline of Attack on Titan becomes a cautionary epic about the cost of hatred and the terrifying burden of freedom. The journey from the fall of a wall to the end of a two-thousand-year cycle encapsulates the whole of human cruelty and compassion. As documented in analyses like full timeline breakdowns by CBR, every event connects in a relentless chain, reminding us that the world beyond the walls was never the true enemy—it was the refusal to break the cycle of revenge.

The Legacy of the Timeline

Reflecting on the entire timeline of Shingeki no Kyojin reveals a meticulously constructed narrative. From the naive child screaming vengeance at the Smiling Titan to the man who became the very horror he once hated, Eren’s arc is the spine of this chronology. The walls that were built to protect became symbols of ignorance, and the friends who fought side by side became executioners in the name of a greater love. The final battle wasn’t just a fight for survival; it was a funeral for an old world, witnessed by the last generation that remembered life before the fall of Wall Maria.

Ultimately, the timeline teaches that history is written by the survivors, but its scars are carved into every heart that beats in the silence after the Rumbling. The story continues in the pages of fan discussions and supplemental materials, as fans track every date and season across detailed year-by-year entries. The fall of Wall Maria, the battle for Trost, the uprising, and the final battle all stand as eternally intertwined chapters in a masterpiece that will be dissected for decades to come.