The timeline starts with the creation of the world itself. The timeline dubs this “The Era of the World’s Creation,” a simple name, but an effective one nonetheless.
Then comes Skyward Sword, the most recent Zelda game released on the Nintendo Wii. This takes place in what is referred to as “The Era of the Goddess Hylia”. Here, the goddess Hylia is reincarnated. The timeline also makes a vague reference to an ancient battle and Hylia subsequently returns to Earth.
From here, we move on to several eras that have no ties to any of the games. There’s the Sky era, where nothing of note happens (seriously, the other side is completely blank on this section), the Era of Chaos where the Sacred Realm is sealed, and the Era of Prosperity, where the kingdom of Hyrule is established.
Following this, we come to the Force era, where the events of The Minish Cap take place. The evil god Vaati is born. I assume he gets killed at the end of that game because the 4 Swords game, which is said to come after shows Vaati being resurrected.
We then come to the Era of the Hero of Time. The Hyrule Unification War occurs between 4 Swords and the following game, Ocarina of Time, at which point, the events of the game transpire. It is here where the Dark World is formed and Ganondorf turns into the demon Ganon, the iconic big bad of the Zelda franchise.
Are you keeping up so far? Good, because here is where things get really interesting. As I said before, the events of Ocarina of Time resulted in a fractured timeline. Now, for the sake of simplicity, I’m going tomove through, and finish, each timeline before moving on to the next. Even so, you might want to brace yourself, because in part 3, we jump into the first of the three alternate timelines that exist within the Zelda chronology.
Sources
The Official Legend of Zelda Timeline Revealed. Sterling, Jim. Destructoid.com
The Official Zelda Timeline Now With Added Detail . Kotaku.com