We've just launched a new site at chron8.com that allows you and others to enter any number of events with dates, then shows these events as a graphical timeline. You can superimpose several timelines on top of each other, to see how they relate. A previous blog post explains how this helped me to find some patterns in musical composition dates.

I've been working on a new timeline visualization tool that will be online soon. As a demo case, I have been using the composition dates of operas by three composers I happen to like: Bellini, Verdi, and Wagner. Looking at their production visually reveals some interesting patterns.