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  • The final season of Game of Thrones has arrived.

  • But before we can get to the ending, first we have to understand the beginning.

  • We've got the whole history of Westeros mapped out for you - just in time to get ready to

  • see it all come crashing down.

  • Here's the entire Game of Thrones timeline explained.

  • In the distant past, Westeros was the home of the Children of the Forest.

  • But roughly 12,000 years before the first episode of the series takes place, the first

  • humans arrived from across the sea.

  • The Children of the Forest called them The First Men, and two thousand years of war ensued.

  • Finally, a truce was called, but it was too late.

  • The Children turned to dark magic to protect themselves and inadvertently created the undead

  • Night King and his White Walkers.

  • Once the Pact was signed around 10,000 BC, the First Men entered the Age of Heroes, with

  • legendary figures like Bran the Builder and Lann the Clever creating much of what defines

  • Westeros as we know it.

  • But the Age of Heroes is defined most by the Long Night.

  • Around the year 8,000 BC, the White Walkers broke free from the control of the Children

  • of the Forest, bringing about a winter of perpetual night that lasted an entire generation.

  • "In that darkness, the White Walkers came for the first time.

  • They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses.”

  • The Children and the First Men banded together to defeat the Night King, but at great cost.

  • The children were nearly driven to extinction, and the Wall was built to keep the Walkers

  • trapped in the frozen north - along with the tribes of humanity who would become the Wildlings.

  • Our clearest glimpse of this era comes from the season seven episode "The Spoils of War,"

  • in which Jon Snow and Daenerys examine cave paintings beneath Dragonstone of the Walkers,

  • the Children, and the First Men.

  • Starting around 6,000 years in the story's past, a new group of human invaders arrived:

  • The Andals Originally from Essos, the Andals were compelled by visions of a seven faced

  • god to cross the sea and settle Westeros.

  • Their religion, which became the Faith of the Seven, spurred social developments like

  • knighthood and chivalry.

  • The First Men, pushed out by waves of Andals arriving over the course of several thousand

  • years, slowly retreated to the North, where their traditions were kept by families like

  • the Starks and the Mormonts.

  • Still, to people from Essos, anyone from Westeros is considered to be an Andal, which is why

  • even northmen like Jorah are given that nickname by those who don't know any better.

  • Where are the dragons?"

  • "Will you betray her again, Jorah the Andal?"

  • Speaking of Essos, that continent developed very differently than Westeros thanks to the

  • magicians and dragon riders of legendary Valyria.

  • They developed the dragon-fused stone roads which still criss-cross Essos, and invented

  • Valyrian steel, the strongest metal ever known.

  • But roughly 400 years before the events shown in Game of Thrones, all of that ended with

  • the Doom of Valyria, a cataclysmic volcanic disaster that left the fabled empire in ruins.

  • "Magnificent.

  • Looks fresh forged.”

  • "It is.”

  • No one's made a Valyrian steel sword since the doom of Valyria!"

  • Among the only survivors were a minor family called the Targaryens, who had left Essos

  • for the castle Dragonstone in Westeros 12 years earlier after a prophetic dream warned

  • them of the coming Doom.

  • The Targaryens were suddenly the survivors of a lost culture - and among the few people

  • in the world with dragons at their beck and call.

  • Though the forces of the Targaryens were puny compared to the great houses of the Seven

  • Kingdoms, they held the trump card: three great dragons, ridden by Aegon the Conqueror

  • and his two sister wives.

  • Aegon united the Seven Kingdoms under his rule, creating the Iron Throne out of the

  • swords they surrendered to him.

  • In the year 280, the seeds of the Targaryen downfall were sewn.

  • The Mad King, Aerys Targaryen, decided to marry off his son and heir, the beloved Prince

  • Rhaegar, to the Dornish princess Elia Martell, the sister of Prince Doran and Oberyn Martell.

  • But Rhaegar secretly was in love with Lyanna Stark, the betrothed of Robert Baratheon.

  • In the year 281, Prince Rhaegar won a tournament at Harrenhal, but instead of naming his wife

  • as the tournament's Queen of Love and Beauty, he chose Lyanna, driving a wedge between House

  • Baratheon and the Targayens.

  • And they weren't alone: breaking tradition, the Mad King named Tywin Lannister's son,

  • Jaime Lannister, as one of his King's Guard, forcing Jaime to renounce his claim as heir

  • to house Lannister.

  • Tywin was enraged, and resigned as the Hand of the King, retreating to Casterly Rock.

  • That set the stage for everything that has happened in the show since.

  • In the year 282, Rhaegar had his marriage annulled, and secretly wed Lyanna.

  • The Starks, though, believing Lyanna was captured against her will, protested to the Mad King.

  • In a fit of rage, the King murdered Lord Rickard and his eldest son, Brandon Stark.

  • Brandon's brother, Ned, joined with Robert Baratheon in rebellion.

  • Your father and brother rode south once.

  • On a King's demand."

  • During Robert's Rebellion, Rhaegar was killed by Robert Baratheon, but not before Lyanna

  • became pregnant.

  • Ned Stark found her on her deathbed, having just given birth to a son she named Aegon

  • Targayen.

  • Ned secretly vowed to raise and protect him, and did so by adopting him as his own bastard

  • son, whom he renamed Jon Snow.

  • Meanwhile, the Mad King decided to destroy all of King's Landing rather than surrender,

  • leading Jamie Lannister to kill him, earning the name Kingslayer.

  • The Mad King's pregnant wife, though, escaped to safety.

  • But tragically, Prince Rahegar's wife, Elia Martell, and their two children weren't so

  • lucky, murdered by The Mountain at the orders of Tywin Lannister.

  • "I'm going to hear you confess before you die.

  • You rapped my sister.

  • You muddered her.

  • You called her children."

  • With the Mad King slain and his army thoroughly beaten, Robert Baratheon took the throne.

  • He married Cersei Lannister, though he never stopped mourning Lyanna.

  • She belonged with me.”

  • Ned Stark returned home to Winterfell.

  • He never told anyone the truth of Jon's parentage, letting even his own wife believe he had betrayed

  • her with another woman, embittering her forever against Jon.

  • And as for the Mad King's wife?

  • Well, she died giving birth to a daughter named Daenerys, who along with her older brother

  • Viserys was smuggled across the sea to Essos in the hope that one day, they could return

  • to Westeros to claim their throne by winning the Game of Thrones.

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The final season of Game of Thrones has arrived.

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