■ 1959: Hired as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia.
■ 1964: Serves on the Warren Commission, which concludes that a lone assassin killed President John F. Kennedy.
■ 1965: Runs successfully on Republican ticket for Philadelphia district attorney, even though he was a Democrat.
■ 1967: Loses election for Philadelphia mayor.
■ 1969: Elected to second term as district attorney.
■ 1973: Loses bid for third term as district attorney.
■ 1976: Loses GOP Senate primary.
■ 1978: Loses GOP gubernatorial primary.
■ 1980: Wins Pennsylvania’s open US Senate seat and joins new Republican majority in the chamber.
■ 1986: Elected to second term in Senate.
■ 1987: Helps defeat PresidentReagan’s Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork.
■ 1991: Aggressively questions Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination hearing.
■ 1992: Elected to third term in Senate.
■ 1995: Announces candidacy for president. Suspends campaign later that year amid fundraising difficulties.
■ 1998: Elected to fourth term in Senate.
■ 2004: Ekes out win in Senate GOP primary, beating US Representative Pat Toomey by 17,146 votes, or 1.6 percentage points. Wins a fifth term in November.
■ 2005: Begins two-year term as chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee.
■ February 2009: Votes for Democrats’ economic stimulus package, inflaming GOP sentiment against him.
■ April 15, 2009: Toomey announces he will mount another challenge to Specter in 2010 Senate GOP primary.
■ April 28, 2009: Specter announces he is changing party registration from Republican to Democrat.
■ August 4, 2009: Democratic US Representative Joe Sestak announces his Senate candidacy.
■ May 18, 2010: Sestak defeats Specter in Democratic Party primary.
■ Dec. 22, 2010: Specter takes last vote in Senate.
■ Jan. 3, 2011: Senate term ends.
■ Oct. 19, 2011: In speech, Specter blames the Tea Party movement for removing GOP moderates, says Washington gridlock has become ‘‘like a war.’’
■ Aug. 28, 2012: Confirms that he is battling cancer again.
■ Oct. 14, 2012: Son confirms Specter’s death at his Philadelphia home of complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. - ASSOCIATED PRESS