The following is taken from the novels' version of events, which differs quite a bit from what was seen in the films (for example, several of the events in Ring 2 blatantly contradict Rasen). Events from the books that fall into the timeframe of the movies are indicated below.

For those not familiar with the novels, please see the FAQ for more detailed information.

1946

Summer
On the night of a full moon, Yamamura Shizuko brings up a stone statuette of En no Ozunu from the ocean floor. Soon thereafter, she begins exhibiting psychic abilities.

1947

Against the advice of her friends, Shizuko leaves her hometown on Oshima Island bound for Tokyo. She collapses shortly after arrival, victim of the migraines that have plagued her since the awakening of her powers.

While hospitalized she encounters Ikuma Heihachiro, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at T University. Ikuma is intrigued by the psychic abilities of his patient, a fascination that soon has the married Ikuma entering into an affair with her. When Shizuko conceives, she returns to Oshima in order to spare Ikuma from possible scandal. Later that year, Sadako is born. Shizuko entrusts the child to her grandmother to return to Tokyo and reunite with her lover.

1950

Shizuko returns to Oshima Island and retrieves her daughter. When Sadako turns three, the two leave Oshima and are not seen or heard from for five years.

1954

Shizuko gives birth to a second child. Four months later the boy dies from illness.

1955

Shizuko bows out of a psychic demonstration before an audience of close to a hundred, causing the press to vilify her as a fraud. In the aftermath, Shizuko falls into a deep depression and Ikuma both divorces his wife and is made to resign his teaching position at the university.

That same year, Ikuma retreats into the mountains and begins a regimen of standing under waterfalls in an attempt to focus concentration and awaken psychic powers within himself. His efforts result not only in failure, but in him contracting tuberculosis. He is admitted to a facility in southern Hakone for treatment.

1956

At Sadako's suggestion, mother and daughter return to Oshima in order to escape a scornful press. Shizuko never breaks out of her depression, however, and before the year is over she commits suicide by throwing herself into Mount Mihara, an active volcano. She was 31.

Following her mother's death, Sadako takes up residence at Yamamura Villa, which is run by Yamamura Takashi (Shizuko's cousin).

1957

Sadako, now age 9, gains fame throughout Oshima as her prediction that Mt. Mihara will erupt is correct to the date and time. Following this, however, she steadfastly refuses to admit having any psychic powers.

Ring Ø

1965

Sadako graduates high school. She moves to Tokyo and auditions for the Hisho Acting Troupe. Upon her acceptance, she sends a postcard to her family--it is the last time they will ever hear from her. Meanwhile, Sadako becomes romantically involved with Toyama, the soundman.

1966

Sadako, believing herself to be alone, is spied practicing nensha (the focusing of will to produce an image) onto a television set. In a later conversation with Toyama, she postulates (foresees?) that there will one day be an invention similar to cassette tape, but that will be able to record images.

Some time later, a spiteful member of the acting troupe named Okubo discovers and then broadcasts an audio recording of Sadako and Toyama being intimate. The next day, troupe director Shigemori is found dead and Sadako has disappeared. As time passes, all five people to have heard the tape mysteriously die of heart attack.

Summer
Sadako visits Hakone for approximately a month to be near her father. There, she is sexually assaulted by one of the doctors, 28-year old Nagao Jotaro. It is not until after the assault that Nagao discovers Sadako's secret: due to a condition called Testicular Feminization Syndrome, Sadako possesses a pair of testes and is in fact more male than female. Sadako launches a psychic attack, mentally screaming Nagao retalialtes by strangling Sadako close to death and dumping her into a nearby well. Within the well, Sadako sees a future in which she will be reborn within the womb of Takano Mai. She dies shortly thereafter, at the age of 19.

Ring

1990

September 5th
Four high school friends view a "cursed videotape." One week later, all four die at exactly the same time.

October 11th
Journalist Asakawa Kazuyuki, investigating the mysterious deaths, postulates that the friends fell victim to some form of virus. He begins looking for a point of infection, and learns that all four had stayed at the Villa Log Cabin resort, where they viewed a mysterious videotape. Asakawa arrives at the resort and watches the tape.

October 12th
Asakawa asks the help of associate Takayama Ryuji to solve the riddle of the cursed videotape. The two watch the tape at Asakawa's apartment.

October 18th
Asakawa and Ryuji determine the videotape is the product of one Yamamura Sadako. The tape, which infects whomever watches it with a smallpox virus that becomes fatal by the seventh day, appears to be Sadako's means of exacting revenge for her wrongful death. In hopes of breaking the curse, Asakawa and Ryuji return to Hakone, where they find and remove Sadako's skeletal remains from the well. Scant minutes later, Asakawa crosses the one-week deadline. The curse is believed to have been broken.

October 19th
Asakawa takes Sadako's remains back to Oshima and hands them over to the head of the Yamamura household.

9:48 p.m. Takayama Ryuji, feeling that death is imminent, telephones his assistant Takano Mai. By 9:49 he is already dead.

Rasen / "Floating Coffin"

October 20th
The autopsy of Ryuji's body falls to one Ando Mitsuo. By an unfortunate coincidence, Ando and Ryuji were friends at university.

October 21st
Asakawa is frantic. Why did Ryuji die? Was there something he, Asakawa, did that Ryuji did not? When the answer comes it is perfectly obvious. The purpose of a virus is to spread, and the videotape is a form of virus. Thus, to break Sadako's curse, one must contribute to the virus--as Asakawa did, when he made a copy of the videotape and gave it to Ryuji. Asakawa bundles his wife and daughter into the car and heads for his wife's hometown. They too have watched the videotape, and his plan is to copy the tape and show it to his wife's parents.

Later that day, however, he is in a car accident that claims the lives of both his wife and daughter. Asakawa himself remains in critical condition.

November 5th
It is learned that Asakawa's wife and daughter were dead before the accident. Ando is stumped.

Later, Takano Mai finds Ryuji's copy of the videotape in his apartment and views it for herself. Immediately she feels nauseous. Sadako's DNA has already entered her body and begun to incubate.

November 8th
The still unborn Sadako now has complete control over Mai's body. She wills Mai to go to the roof of her building.

November 15th
Sadako is reborn, and the lifeless body of Takano Mai is cast aside.

November 19th
Ando finds and reads a report written by Asakawa. Its title: The Ring.

November 20th
Takano Mai has not been seen or heard from in five days. Ando stops by to inquire on her and sees a beautiful young girl exiting Mai's apartment. Though he would have no way of knowing it, this was the now fully-grown Sadako.

November 26th
The body of Takano Mai is found inside a rectangular venting duct on the roof of her apartment. Later that day, Yoshino visits Toyama, Sadako's lover from the acting troupe. Toyama, whose health is beginning to fade, remains deeply in love with Sadako even now.

November 27th
Ando is informed that Asakawa has passed away. He decides to visit the scene where Mai's body was found, to look for clues linking their deaths. On the elevator down he again encounters Sadako, who utters the cryptic phrase, "I'll call on you soon with a request."

Sadako leaves the apartment and appears before Toyama. "Let me release you from your pain," she whispers. He is dead almost instantly.

1991

January 14th
The Ring Virus has mutated, and Asakawa's report is now its primary vehicle. Ando, having read the report, finds himself plagued with thoughts of Sadako and the well. His associate Miyashita takes him to Hakone, where the two discover the exact well from their dreams. They will both later test positive for the Ring Virus.

Returning from Hakone, Ando again encounters the reincarnated Sadako. She introduces herself as Masako, claiming to be Mai's older sister. They remain together the rest of the day, eventually heading to Ando's apartment where Sadako extinguishes all light in the room before seducing him.

January 15th
Ando receives a fax from coworker Miyashita, with whom he has been investigating the series of strange deaths that include Mai and Takayama Ryuji. Attached to the fax is a photo of Sadako from her days in the acting troupe. With a shock, Ando realizes that "Masako" is the deceased Sadako. Ando faints from shock, and upon awakening flees the apartment.

When he later returns home, Ando finds a note for him signed Sadako. "Do not oppose me," it says. "Betray the human race, and in return I will give you what you most desire." Ando accepts, and the seed already in Sadako's womb is implanted with the DNA of Ando's deceased son, the DNA taken from a lock of hair.

March
Asakawa's Ring report is published as a novel.

June
The Ring is a runaway bestseller, with 10 million copies already sold and a film adaptation next in the works. Sadako auditions for and receives the role of herself.

By now, 20,000 readers of the Ring novel have already become impregnated with Sadako's DNA. It is the beginning of the end for humankind.