Tim Hortons was founded in Hamilton, Ontario, by Canadian ice hockey player Tim Horton and Jim Charade. It began as a hamburger restaurant before transitioning to a donut store.

Jim Charade left the Tim Hortons organization after being one of the original founders.

Tim Horton partnered with Ron Joyce, who became a full partner in the Tim Hortons business.

Jim Charade briefly returned to Tim Hortons.

Tim Horton died in an auto crash. Ron Joyce bought out the Horton family's shares for $1 million and took over as sole owner of the existing chain of 40 stores.

The first United States locations were opened in Deerfield Beach, Florida and Pompano Beach, Florida, but they proved unsuccessful and were closed.

Tim Hortons returned to the U.S. with a location in Tonawanda, New York.

The Roll Up the Rim to Win campaign was first held when the biggest prize was a snack box of Timbits.

The 500th Tim Hortons store opened.

Ron Joyce received an appointment to the Order of Canada, with the official presentation taking place on October 21, 1992, in Ottawa.

Daniel P. Murphy decided to open new franchise outlets for both brands in the same building in the town of Montague.

The company had removed the apostrophe after signs using the apostrophe was interpreted by some to be breaking the language sign laws of the province of Quebec.

Wendy's International, Inc. acquired and merged with TDL Group.

Wendy's International Inc. bought thirty-seven former Rax locations in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia; 30 of these were converted to Tim Hortons, while the others became Wendy's franchise locations.

System-wide sales surpassed those of McDonald's Canadian operations.

Tim Hortons began accepting Interac in its stores in Western Canada.

Canadian Business named Tim Hortons as the best-managed brand in Canada.

Tim Hortons accounted for 22.6% of all fast-food industry revenues in Canada.

Tim Hortons was the title sponsor of the Brier, the annual Canadian men's curling championships, along with the Canadian Ringette Championships.

Wendy's announced it would sell between 15% and 18% of the Tim Hortons operations in an initial public offering.

TDL Group announced its commitment to open a franchised location at the Canadian Forces operations base in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Shares of Tim Hortons began trading with an initial public offering of CA$27 per share, raising over $700 million in the first day of trading.

Wendy's spun off the rest of its shares in Tim Hortons by distributing the remaining 82% to its shareholders. On the same day, Tim Hortons was added to Canada's benchmark stock-market indicator, the S&P/TSX Composite Index, and to the S&P/TSX 60.

Tim Hortons gift certificates were discontinued and replaced with the Quickpay Tim Card.

Tim Hortons began accepting MasterCard and MasterCard PayPass across most of its stores.

Tim Hortons coffee and donuts were being sold at small self-service counters in 50 Spar stores in the UK and Ireland.

Tim Hortons announced a plan to add 82 locations in Tops Markets stores in the United States.

Tim Hortons opened its first outlet at a U.S. military base at Fort Knox.

Kahala, the parent company of Cold Stone Creamery, announced that it had reached an agreement with Tim Hortons to open up to 100 co-branded stores in the United States after successfully testing two locations in Rhode Island.

Tim Hortons USA created Twitter and Facebook pages to drive online traffic.

Tim Hortons Inc. announced that the chain's operations would be reorganized under a new publicly traded company, also named "Tim Hortons Incorporated", incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act. The change was being made primarily for tax purposes.

Tim Hortons opened stores in New York City at former Dunkin' Donuts locations operated by the Riese Organization. One of the stores is at Madison Square Garden, where Horton played as a member of the New York Rangers from 1969 to 1971.

Tim Hortons Inc. announced it had completed the reorganization of its corporate structure to become a Canadian public company.

Tim Hortons opened what were then its northernmost locations: three kiosks at NorthMart stores in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

Tim Hortons opened a second outlet at Naval Station Norfolk.

Tim Hortons announced further expansion on both sides of the Canada–US border to be completed by 2013.

Tim Hortons extended Interac debit payment system acceptance to most of its stores.

Tim Hortons announced it was closing 36 stores in the northeastern United States due to high competition with New England–based Dunkin' Donuts and Au Bon Pain.

Tim Hortons entered the United Arab Emirates in 2011 with locations in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Fujairah.

Tim Hortons announced that they would be adding espresso machines in 1,000 of their locations.

The Kandahar Tim Hortons closed after serving four million cups of coffee and three million donuts over five years.

Tim Hortons opened its 4,000th restaurant.

Tim Hortons Inc. recorded its total revenues at $3.12 billion (CDN).

Tim Hortons began accepting Visa cards.

Tim Hortons began advertising in the Youngstown, Ohio, area in anticipation of an eventual expansion into the Mahoning Valley.

Tim Hortons launched frozen lemonade, in two flavours: original and raspberry.

Tim Hortons began accepting American Express cards.

Tim Hortons had "4,350 cafes across the world, out of which 3,500 are in Canada, 817 in the U.S. and 33 in the GCC. The Toronto Stock Exchange listed company recorded revenues of $794 million and net profit of $111 million in the September quarter."

Tim Hortons acquired the naming rights to the stadium being built in Hamilton, Ontario.

Tim Hortons opened a kiosk in what's now the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona.

Tim Hortons announced that they will be pulling Cold Stone Creamery from all its Canadian restaurants, although Tim Hortons would maintain its locations in the United States.

Tim Hortons announced that the dutchie timbit was discontinued due to low popularity.

Tim Hortons added a dark roast coffee blend as an alternative.

Burger King announced that it was in negotiations to merge with Tim Hortons Inc; the proposed $18 billion mergers would involve a tax inversion into Canada.

Burger King officially confirmed its intent to acquire Tim Hortons Inc. in a deal totaling CA$12.5 billion (US$11.4 billion).

A flagship Tim Hortons location within the Buffalo area opened across from the KeyBank Center at the LECOM Harborcenter complex.

The deal was approved by Minister of Industry James Moore with conditions, requiring that the Burger King and Tim Hortons chains retain separate operations and not combine locations, maintain "significant employment levels" at the Oakville headquarters, and ensure that Canadians make up at least 50% of Tim Hortons' board of directors.

Tim Hortons shareholders approved the merger.

The two chains merged under the new parent company Restaurant Brands International (RBI), which began trading.

The company announced the closure of its U.S. headquarters in Dublin, Ohio.

Tim Hortons pulled a four-week advertising campaign by energy company Enbridge from its in-store "Tims TV" service after three weeks following a petition by the advocacy group, SumOfUs.

Tim Hortons expanded to Minnesota with a store inside Mall of America. However, this location is closed.

Tim Hortons had 683 U.S. locations by the end of 2016, and total annual revenue of US$3.00 billion.

Tim Hortons again changed presidents.

Tim Hortons announced it would be expanding into the United Kingdom, with an unannounced number of locations to be built.

Tim Hortons announced an expansion to Northeast Ohio with 105 stores to come to the greater Cleveland area.

Tim Hortons began to offer hamburgers on the lunch menu in Canada.

Tim Hortons opened its first Southeast Asian branch in the Philippines at Uptown Mall in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

Glasgow saw the first UK store open its doors.

Tim Hortons opened two stores in the centre of Madrid and later opened another in the city of Pozuelo de Alarcón in the Community of Madrid.

Named as one of the top five plastic polluters in Canada.

Tim Hortons became the subject of controversy after the raise of the minimum wage in Ontario from $11.60 to $14.00 an hour which was made effective January 2018.

Tim Hortons announced that they would be moving their head office along with its 400 employees to the Exchange Tower in downtown Toronto.

The Reputation Institute reported that Tim Hortons had fallen from 13th to 67th in its study of Canada's most reputable companies.

Tim Hortons announced that they would be opening 1,500 stores in China.

Tim Hortons began to install self-serve kiosks at some locations in Ontario.

Tim Hortons began to spread the installation of the self-serve kiosks across Canada.

Tim Hortons partnered with Bolla Market to open "15 to 20 over the next 12 to 18 months" across Long Island.

The first Tim Hortons location in Thailand opened at Samyan Mitrtown Mall in Bangkok.

Tim Hortons met criticism for not offering sick-leave concessions to employees during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.

Tim Hortons announced that it had cancelled the distribution of physical cups for the Roll Up the Rim promotion due to concerns that the virus could be spread by returned cups, and that the promotion would be conducted solely via the app.

The chain began a promotion with Toronto singer Justin Bieber, which included the release of limited edition "Tim Biebs" Timbits and accompanying merchandise.

Tim Hortons opened Ireland's first location in Limerick.

Tim Hortons announced a planned expansion into Georgia and Texas. Over the next five years, it plans to open over 20 new stores in the Atlanta and Columbus, Georgia, areas plus greater Houston, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee.

The federal privacy commissioner, with officials in Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, announced the results of its investigation, that Tim Hortons violated privacy laws by tracking people who used its app, gathering their location data hundreds of times a day – even when the app was not in use.

The first two Tim Hortons locations in India opened in New Delhi and Gurugram, followed by a third location, in New Delhi, on August 31, 2022.

Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation announced that they were planning to open a Tim Hortons location in Singapore, Malaysia, and to open another in Indonesia, in 2024.

Tim Hortons opened four locations in DHA, Lahore, and Gulberg, and announced to open more locations in other major cities of Pakistan.

Tim Hortons announced a new location in Prospect, Grand Cayman. This will be the first Tim Hortons in the Caribbean.

Tim Hortons announced plans to expand into South Korea.

Tim Hortons opened its first Korean location in Gangnam District, Seoul.

Tim Hortons officially opened at VivoCity.

As part of the brand's 60th anniversary celebrations, a musical titled The Last Timbit was produced at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres in Toronto.

Tim Hortons opened another store in Pakistan, this time in Islamabad.

Tim Hortons introduced flatbread pizzas to expand on their lunch/dinner menu.

Tim Hortons first Malaysian store opened at IOI City Mall - the country's largest mall - in Dengkil, Selangor.

Tim Hortons opened its first ever Tim's Signatures at 313@Somerset, Singapore which sells more upmarket coffee options, such as single-origin and filter brews.

The fifth flavour Spicy Rosé was introduced.

Tim Hortons opened in Prospect, Grand Cayman.

Tim Hortons opened their first location in Austin, Texas.