Significant Dates in the Vampire Timeline
1047
The word upir (an early form of the word later to become "vampire") first appears in written form in a document referring to a Russian prince as "Upir Lichy", or wicked vampire.
1190
Walter Map's De Nagis Curialium includes accounts of vampire like beings in England.
1196
William of Newburh's Chronicles records stories of vampire-like revenants in England.
1431
Vlad Dracula III, son of Vlad Dracul II of Wallachia is born
1455
Constantinople falls.
1459
Vlad Dracula massacres 30,000 Boyars, mostly by impalement, putting the rest to work as slave labor rebuilding his castle. Vlad the Impaler's reign of terror is well underway.
1476 Vlad the Impaler is assassinated.
1484 The Malleus Maleficarium, known as "the witch hunter's bible", is authored by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. How to hunt
and kill a vampire is discussed in the work.
1560
Elizabeth Bathory is born. 1610
Elizabeth Bathory is arrested for killing several hundred people and bathing in their blood. Tried and convicted, she is sentenced to life imprisonment, being bricked into a room in her castle.
1657
Francoise Richard's Relation de ce qui s'est passé a Sant-Erini Isle de l'Archipel links vampirism and witchcraft.
1672
Wave of vampire hysteria sweeps through Istra (now in modern Slovenia). Corpses of
suspected vampires are typically staked (to keep them from rising) and decapitated.
1679
German text De Masticatione Mortuorum is written by Philip Rohr.
1710
Vampire hysteria sweeps through East Prussia.
1725
Vampire hysteria returns to East Prussia.
1725–1730
Vampire hysteria lingers in Hungary.
1725–1732
The wave of vampire hysteria in Austrian Serbia produces the famous cases of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paul (Paole).
Arnold Paole wreaks his vampiric havoc on the small town of Meduegna, near Belgrade.
The word "vampyre" enters the English language in translations of German accounts of European waves of vampire hysteria.
Cardinal Giuseppe Davanzati publishes his treatise, Dissertazione sopre I Vampiri.
Dom Augustin Calmet publishes his treatise on vampires, Dissertations sur les Apparitions des Anges des Démons et des Esprits, et sur les revenants, et Vampires de Hundrie, de Bohème, de Moravic, et de Silésie.
The first modern vampire poem, Der Vampir by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, is published.
Another wave of vampire hysteria occurs in East Prussia.
Vampire hysteria peaks in Wallachia.
Vampire hysteria occurs in Russia.
Goethe's Bride of Corinth (a poem concerning a vampire) is published.
Wake Not The Dead by Johann Ludwig Tiek, the first known vampire story in English is published.
Thalaba by Robert Southey is the first poem to mention the vampire in English.
Reports of sheep being killed by having their jugular veins cut and their blood drained circulate through northern England.
A vampire appears in Lord Byron's The Giaour.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's haunting poem about a female vampire Cristabel is published.
John Polidori's The Vampyre appears in the April issue of
New Monthly Magazine.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats is published.
Alexey Tolstoy publishes his short story, Upyr, while living in Paris. It is the first modern vampire story by a Russian.
Varney the Vampyre begins its serialisation as a penny dreadful.
Alexandre Dumas' last dramatic work, Le Vampire, opens in Paris.
The case of vampirism in the Ray family of Jewell, Connecticut, is published in local newspapers.
Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu is published.
Reports from Ceven, Ireland, tell of sheep having their throats cut and their blood drained.
H.G. Wells's short story, The Flowering of the Strange Orchid, is a precursor to science fiction vampire stories.
Bram Stoker publishes Dracula which becomes the inspiration for the creation of the vampire as a stereotypical character on stage and screen. The Vampire by Rudyard Kipling is published.
The Secrets of House No. 5, possibly the first vampire movie, is produced in Great Britain
Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker is published posthumously.
Dracula, the first film based on the novel, is made in Russia. Sadly, no copy has survived.
Nosferatu, a German-made silent film produced by Prana Films, is the third attempt to film Dracula.
Fritz Haarmann the "Vampire of Hannover" is convicted of killing over 20 in vampiric crime spree.
14th February: Stage version of Dracula debuts at the Little Theatre in London.
England sees the first printing of The Vampire: His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers.
Montague Summers's second vampire book, The Vampire in Europe, is published.
January: Spanish film version of Dracula is previewed.
The highly acclaimed movie Vampyr, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, is released.
Dracula's Daughter is released by Universal Pictures.
A. E. Van Vought's Asylum is the first story about an alien vampire.
Son of Dracula (Universal Pictures), starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Dracula, is released.
John Carradine plays Dracula for the first time in Horror of Dracula.
Drakula Istanbul'da, a Turkish film adaptation of Dracula, is released.
The Comics Code banishes vampires from comic books.
John Carradine plays Dracula in the first television adaptation of the play for Matinee Theatre.
The first Italian vampire movie, I Vampiri, is released.
Hammer Films in Great Britain initiates a new wave of interest in vampires with the first of itsDracula, starring Christopher Lee and released in the United States as the Horror of Dracula.
Plan 9 From Outer Space is Bela Lugosi's last film.
The Bad Flower is the first Korean film adaptation of Dracula.
The Count Dracula Society is founded in the United States by Donald Reed.
The Munsters and The Addams Family, two horror comedies with vampire characters, open in the autumn television season.
Jeanne Younson founds The Count Dracula Fan Club.
Vampire Barnabas Collins makes his debut on
Dark Shadows.
First issue of Vampirella, the longest running vampire comic book to date, is released.
The Vampire Research Society is founded by Seán Manchester.
Marvel Comics releases the first copy of a post-Comics Code vampire comic book, The Tomb of Dracula. Morbius, the Living Vampire, is the first new vampire character introduced after the revision of the Comics code allowed vampires to reappear in comic books.
Stephan Kaplan founds The Vampire Research Centre.
The last known execution of a Tlahuelpuchi(vampire witch) takes place in Tlaxcala, Mexico.
Fred Saberhagen proposes viewing Dracula as a hero rather than a villain in The DraculaTape.
First book of Anne Rice's vampire series, Interview With The Vampire, is published.
A new dramatic version of Dracula opens on Broadway starring Frank Langella.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's book Hotel Transylvania joins the volumes of Fred Saberhagen and Anne Rice as the third major effort to begin a reappraisal of the vampire myth during the decade.
Based on the success of the new Broadway production, Universal Pictures remakes Dracula, starring Frank Langella.
The Bram Stoker Society is founded in Dublin, Ireland.
In the December issue of Dr. Strange, Marvel Comics' ace occultist kills all of the vampires in the world, thus banishing them from Marvel Comics for the next six years.
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice is published and reaches the best seller list.
Vamp, featuring Grace Jones, is released. Films like it, last year's Fright Night and – 1987 – The Lost Boys combine horror and humour.
The Queen Of The Damned by Anne Rice is published.
Overthrow of Romanian dictator Nikolai Ceaucescu opens Transylvania to Dracula enthusiasts.
Vampire: The Masquerade,the most successful of the vampire role-playing games, is released by White Wolf.
Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is released.
Interview With The Vampire comes to the big screen. Oprah Winfrey forms "prayer circle" outside premiere to work against the forces of darkness she believes the film is calling down. Others also are appalled by the casting of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
The first book in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series , "Guilty Pleasures" is published.
The series Kindred: the Embraced airs for a whole 8 episodes.
The Sanguinarius site, a comprehensive resource for real vampire support and information is opened.
Blade is released, with Wesley Snipes as a vampire slayer.
Vittorio the Vampire by Anne Rice is published.
The Movie Queen of the Damned starring Stuart Townsend and Aaliyah is released. Blade II is also released.
Buffy the Vampire
Slayer final episode airs.
Underworld starring
Kate Beckinsale is released.
The Psychic Vampire Codex by Michelle Belanger is published quickly becoming the standard sourcebook for information on psi vampirism.
Ray Sharkey amuses the
general public but not the vampire
community by running as a self identified vampire for
governor of Minneapolis on the Vampires, Witches and
Pagans Party ticket.
A third movie version of author Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is made starring Will Smith.
True Blood based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries is serialised as an HBO special
Compiled by Blacklight and Imon
Leo Allatius finishes writing the first modern treatment of vampires, De Graecorum hodie quirundam opinationabus.
I Vampiri, an opera by Silvestro de Palma, opens in Milan, Italy.
The Vampyre, a poem by John Stagg is published
Birth of Bram Stoker.
Vincenzo Vierzeni is convicted in Italy of murdering two and drinking their blood.
Hamilton Dean's stage version of Dracula opens in Derby.
Sherlock Holmes has his only encounter with a vampire in The Case of the Sussex Vampire.
October: American version of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, opens at Fulton Theatre in New York City.
Tod Browning directs Lon Chaney in London After Midnight, the first full-length feature film.
February: Dracula, the American film version starring Bela Lugosi, premiers at the Roxy Theatre in New York City.
Peter Kurten of Düsseldorf, Germany, is executed after being found guilty of murdering a number of people in a vampiric killing spree.
Eerie No. 8 includes the first comic book adaptation of Dracula.
I am Legend by Richard Matheson presents vampirism as a disease that alters the body.
Kyuketsuki Ga, the first Japanese vampire film, is released.
American producer Roger Corman makes the first science fiction vampire movie, Not of This Earth.
El Vampiro with German Robles is the first of a new wave of Mexican vampire films.
First issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland signals a new interest in horror films in the United States.
The Munsters, based on the television show of the same name, is the first comic book series featuring a vampire character.
Denholm Elliot plays the title role in a BBC television production of Dracula, Does Dracula Really Suck? (aka Dracula and the Boys) is released as the first gay vampire movie.
Christopher Lee stars in El Conde Dracula, the Spanish film adaptation of Dracula.
Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu release In
Search of Dracula, linking Vlad the Impaler as the
inspiration for Stoker's
Dracula.
True Vampires of History by Donald Glut is the
first attempt to assemble the stories of all the
historical vampire figures.
The Night Stalker with Darrin McGavin
becomes the most watched television movie to that
point in time.
Nancy Garden's Vampires launches a wave of juvenile literature for children and youth.
The World of Dark Shadows is founded as the first Dark Shadows fanzine.
Stephen King is nominated for the World Fantasy Award for his vampire novel, 'Salem's Lot.
Louis Jourdan stars in the title role in Count Dracula, a three-hour version of Bram Stoker's book on BBC
television.
Martin V. Riccardo founds the Vampire Studies Society.
Eric Held and Dorothy Nixon found the Vampire Information Exchange.
The band Bauhaus's recording of 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' becomes the first hit of the new gothic rock music movement.
Shadowgram is founded as a Dark Shadows fanzine.
The World Federation of Dark Shadows Clubs (now Dark Shadows Official Fan Club) is founded.
The Hunger, starring Catherine Deneueve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie, is released.
Fright Night, Transylvania 6-5000, and the anime flick Vampire Hunter D are
among a number of vampire films released.
Dracula's Widow, directed by Francis Ford Coppola's nephew, bombs.
Nancy Collins wins a Bram Stoker Award for her vampire novel Sunglasses After Dark.
Andrei Chokatilo of Russia is sentenced to death after killing and vampirising 55 people.
The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice is published.
Film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer appears.
CBS' Forever Knight begins a three-year run as a tv series.
Pam Keesey edits Dark Angels, an anthology of lesbian vampire fiction.
Director Quentin Tarantino makes From Dusk Till Dawn.
Anne Rice announces she has re-embraced her Catholic faith and will never again write on the subject of vampires.
TV version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Geller, debuts. Teen lockers get new poster girl.
Pandora and The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice are published.
Rumors the government is in collusion with vampires to collect human blood for international agencies in exchange for food leads to a rash of vigilante violence in Malawi.
Real life blood-drinking vampire Don Henrie is featured on the reality TV show Mad Mad House.
Underworld: Evolution is released.
Vampires come to primetime television again with CBS' Moonlight and Lifetime's Blood Ties series, the latter based on Tanya Huff's Blood books.
Twilight, a movie based on the Stephanie Meyers Twilight Saga books premieres in late fall with a record-breaking soundtrack.
Partly sourced from 'The Encyclopedia of the
Undead'
by J. Gordon Melton. Visible Ink Press.
©1994
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