- August 14, 1929 - Born
- 1939 - The Osterman family left Germany before they apprehended his Jewish mother, Inge. Jon was hidden inside a box for market goods, but before their wagon reached the border, they were stopped by Nazis. He and his father reached New York and Josef worked for a watchmaker.
- August 6, 1945 - As the atomic bomb falls on Hiroshima, Jon is sixteen. His father discourages him from going into his trade and to study quantum physics instead.
- 1948-58 - Attended Princeton University As a PhD student, Osterman chose to do his dissertation on the neutrino theory of light involving C waves.
- May 6, 1958 - Osterman is informed that his dissertation was accepted by the department. He is awarded a PhD in Nuclear Physics. He is invited to come work at Gila Flats as a project researcher in the facility's Weapons Testing Center, where objects were being intentionally disintegrated under study. Here he befriended Wally Weaver and met Janey Slater.
- July 1959 - A photographer calls Jon and Janey over and takes a souvenir picture.
- August 20, 1959 - Shortly after his thirtieth birthday, Jon plans to give Janey the repaired watch, only to discover he has left it in his lab coat which is inside the intrinsic field experiment test chamber. While Jon is inside the test chamber retrieving his coat the door closes, automatically locking as a safety feature in preparation to disintegrate test block 15. Unable to open the door or override the countdown, Osterman's colleagues - save for Janey, who cannot bear to see the last moment and flees the room - can only watch, horrified, as the countdown for the current experiment shortly reaches zero, and Jon has his 'intrinsic field' removed. Bathed in the radiant light, he is torn to pieces from the force of the generator, instantly vaporized and officially declared dead.
- The following months see a series of strange events and apparitions at the research base, leading residents to speculate the area is now haunted. It becomes plain that Jon's consciousness has survived as an electromagnetic pattern and learned to control the particles and used them to reform himself as if he reassembled a watch. This progression being indicated by a series of partial bodily reappearances: first as a disembodied nervous system, including the brain and eyes; then as a circulatory system (November 10); then a screaming partially muscled skeleton (November 14). Each time, the appearance only lasts for a few seconds.
- November 22, 1959 - Jon fully reappears on in the Gila Flats cafeteria; a whistling sound is heard, cutlery is sparkling and he appears as a tall, hairless, naked, blue-skinned figure in an ultraviolet light that caused sunburn to those present. His relationship with Janey proceeded although she felt that everything changed around them. The following Christmas she bought him a golden ring and Jon admired its molecular structure. Janey expressed her concerns and that she was scared. Jon quieted her promising that he will always love her, although he knew it would change.
- 1960 - The next year the government entered the process in making him a costumed adventurer and prepared a suit and hat for him as well as a name reminiscent of the Manhattan Project for their enemies. Dr. Manhattan didn't like the association with the atomic symbol and rather chose to mark his forehead with the symbol of the hydrogen atom.
- Jon gradually becomes a pawn of the United States government; he is given the code name 'Doctor Manhattan', a reference to the Manhattan Project that, it is hoped, will defeat America's enemies. He is also provided with a costume that he begrudgingly accepts, though he refuses to accept the icon design which is provided for him (this being a stylized orbital model of the atom). Instead, Jon chooses as his emblem a representation of a hydrogen atom, whose simplicity he declares to be something that kindles his respect; accordingly, he painlessly burns the mark into his forehead.
- In 1960 he offered Indian president Rajendra Prasad to fix the famine problem in his country by altering the nitrogen content of India's topsoil, resulting in more fertile land, but he couldn't understand. Instead, Manhattan attended a fundraising event with other former costumed adventurers. There he met aging Hollis Mason and Ozymandias, the world's smartest man, the only person he found interesting enough.
- Later that year, the Pentagon sent him to fight Moloch to justify his name as a "crimefighter". He entered Dante's, Moloch's vice den, and made the head of a gangster explode.
- Accompanied by Milton Glass, he met President John F. Kennedy in '61, who asked him how it is like to be a super-hero. Jon jokingly answered that JFK should know already.
- The next year he attended a banquet in honor of Hollis Mason who decided to retire from being Nite Owl. In a private dialogue, he shares with Jon his plans to become an auto mechanic. From that he got the idea to synthesize the massive amounts of lithium required for polyacetylene batteries, allowing all motor vehicles to become electric. His actions radically altered the world economy and technology and his presence tips the balance of the Cold War in the West's favor, and the United States consequently becomes more aggressive and adventurist during this period.
- He predicts but "fails" to prevent the murder of President Kennedy. Around that time his relationship with Janey Slater becomes strained and they begin arguing. While arguing he predicts that they will make love; moments later she receives the golden earrings Jon made for her, shaped like a hydrogen atom, quieting her anger.
- In 1964 he decided to change his attire and informed the Pentagon.
- Dr. Manhattan was summoned by Captain Metropolis for the first meeting of the Crimebusters superhero group and Slater came with him. Laurie Juspeczyk, the second Silk Spectre, catches his eye, something that was noticed by Janey. Metropolis pulled lots to assign them to pairs, which further enraged Janey, blaming him for altering the result to team-up with her, although Jon claimed that in this quantum reality he was always to be paired with her. This didn't stop him from patrolling with her and soon they came close. Learning this, Janey left him bitterly.
- A few years later his father Josef died and Manhattan decided to publish his birth name. Soon after he moved with Laurie to Washington, D.C., following the closure of Gila Flats. At President Richard Nixon's request, he brings America to victory in the Vietnam War within three months. There he meets up with the Comedian. Many Viet Cong surrendered personally to him in superstitious awe. On the victory celebrations and the day Nixon arrives to Vietnam, he witnesses how the Comedian kills a Vietnamese woman he had impregnated. The Comedian noted that Dr. Manhattan is losing touch with humanity.
- This victory shapes the American political process, as the 22nd Amendment is repealed and Nixon is then repeatedly reelected (by 1985, he serves his fifth term). Critics, however, suggest that, far from solving the problems underlying the international tension, Doctor Manhattan's presence, in fact, exacerbates them while stifling their expression, which inevitably builds towards disaster, as Milton Glass wrote in Dr. Manhattan: Super-Powers and the Superpowers.
- In 1973 he accompanied Laurie at a banquet to honor the Comedian. There she assaulted him for attempting to rape her mother. He became angry at her behavior and he teleported her home.
- During the 1970s there are riots against the costumed adventurers, Manhattan with Laurie attempt to quiet the unrest in Washington. Laurie attempted to hold ringleaders from the crowd outside the White House. This seemed to go on too long and Manhattan teleported everyone to their homes; 2 of them died of a heart attack, although Manhattan believed that more would die during the riots. Eventually, the Keene Act passed outlawing the superheroes, but as the country's defense rested in Manhattan's hands, he continued working for the government.
- In 1981 he moved to the Rockefeller Military Research Center where he performed research and construction of new technology. Laurie was assigned with him, who (in her mother's words) "has to get the H-bomb laid every once in a while".
- In the summer of 1985, he and Laurie walked to Grand Central Station and bought a Time issue celebrating Hiroshima week; the cover had a frozen wristwatch, whose arms had stopped at the same position as Janey's when her own was broken.
- When the Comedian was killed, Dr. Manhattan was informed by the CIA. Rorschach came to warn him and Laurie that the Comedian was dead, and all former costumed adventurers should watch out. His attitude disturbed Laurie and Jon dismissed Rorschach by teleporting him out. As he was busy locating a gluino, he allowed Laurie to go out with Dan. Jon attended the Comedian's funeral and reflected on their association in the Vietnam War. He sensed Moloch's presence but he was not sure that he knew him once.
- He appeared in Benny Anger's show where he would be interviewed. Agent Forbes briefed him on the politics of the Cold War that he might be asked upon. However, it was not what Manhattan was there for. The magazine Nova Express made an investigation about whether Dr. Manhattan caused cancer to his associates, and Doug Roth (who had previously interviewed Janey Slater) made these allegations in public; a fray erupted and the journalists came towards him asking for details concerning his relationship to Slater. Forbes attempted to guide Manhattan outside and hold off the journalists. Eventually, Manhattan teleported everyone away. He leaves his place for the abandoned Gila Flats and recovers the photograph with Slater. He then teleports to Mars.
- However, this was a frame arranged by Adrian Veidt to induce Osterman to leave, to remove his interference in his scheme to save the world. During his absence, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, bringing the world closer to a nuclear war than ever. Eventually, he briefly returns one hour before November 1 to bring Laurie (who, in the meantime, has taken Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II as a new lover) to Mars, where they argue over the fate of the human race. Discussing why he should do anything to aid humanity, Laurie inadvertently wins the argument when she goes through her life and realizes to her shock that her father is Comedian, a man whom she despised for sexually assaulting her mother. From that revelation, Doctor Manhattan is amazed by the improbable chances that occurred to result in the birth of Laurie, which he sees as a stunning "thermodynamic miracle." By extension, this miracle can apply to any living thing on Earth, and so Doctor Manhattan decides to return to Earth to protect humanity rather than disregarding it as insignificant.
- Although they return too late to stop Adrian Veidt's plan, they teleport to Karnak, Antarctica to confront him. Veidt hinders Doctor Manhattan with a tachyon generator that interferes with his ability to see the future and then disintegrates him by subtracting his intrinsic field. To Veidt's surprise, Manhattan restores himself much more quickly this time, but when Veidt reveals that his scheme, in which he used his alien monster to kill half of New York City, appears to have averted the looming nuclear war by frightening the world's governments into cooperation, Manhattan realizes that to expose the scheme would be too dangerous for all life on Earth. Manhattan and the other superheroes except for Rorschach agree to keep quiet to preserve Veidt's results. Rorschach leaves on his own and is murdered by Manhattan to prevent him from ever telling the truth. Manhattan does so reluctantly, at Rorschach's own insistence, who asserts that his death is the only thing that will ensure his silence. Manhattan does not mention Rorschach's death when talking to Veidt not long after, instead of telling Veidt he "does not think Rorschach will reach civilization".
- Doctor Manhattan decides to depart Earth again, but suggests that he might return one day. Adrian Veidt is surprised by his decision, pointing out the apparent contradiction with Manhattan's renewed interest in human life, to which Manhattan suggests that he may "create some [human life]" in another galaxy. When Veidt asks if his plan worked out in the end, Jon Osterman smiles and enigmatically replies that "nothing ever ends," and disappears.
more from fandom.com, from where I took all of this text. I haven't read the other comics with Dr. Manhattan in them, so I have omitted those events.