Born in Kosciusko, Mississippi

January 29, 1954

Oprah Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to unmarried parents. She later explained that her conception was due to a single sexual encounter that her two teenaged parents had; they quickly broke up not long after.

Winfrey moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin

June 5, 1960

At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner city ghetto in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been, due in large part to the long hours Vernita Lee worked as a maid.

Molested

June 7, 1963

Winfrey has stated that she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old, something she first revealed to her viewers on a 1986 episode of her TV show, when sexual abuse was being discussed.

Got Pregnant

April 20, 1968

When she was 14, she became pregnant, but the baby died shortly after birth.

Moved to Nashville, TN

June 13, 1968

...her frustrated mother sent her to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee. Vernon was strict, but encouraging and made her education a priority.

Anthony Otey

October 1, 1970 - September 14, 1971

Her high school sweetheart Anthony Otey recalled an innocent courtship that began in Winfrey's senior year of high school, from which he saved hundreds of love notes; Winfrey conducted herself with dignity and as a model student. The two spoke of getting married, but Otey claimed to have always secretly known that Winfrey was destined for a far greater life than he could ever provide. On Valentine's day of her senior year, Otey's fears came true when Winfrey took Otey aside and told him they needed to talk.

William "Bubba" Taylor

December 1, 1971 - June 14, 1976

In 1971, several months after breaking up with Otey, Winfrey met William "Bubba" Taylor at Tennessee State University. According to CBS journalist George Mair, Taylor was Winfrey's "first intense, to die for love affair". Winfrey helped get Taylor a job at WVOL, and according to Mair, "did everything to keep him, including literally begging him on her knees to stay with her." Taylor however was unwilling to leave Nashville with Winfrey when she moved to Baltimore to work at WJZ-TV in June 1976. "We really did care for each other," Winfrey would later recall. "We shared a deep love. A love I will never forget."

Tennessee State University

September 20, 1972 - June 17, 1987

Educated at Tennessee State University, B.A. in Speech and Drama, 1987

Moved to Baltimore

September 8, 1976

She moved to Baltimore's WJZ-TV in 1976 to co-anchor the six o'clock news.

Married Man

Feburary 12, 1977 - September 8, 1981

According to Mair, when Kramer moved to NBC in New York Winfrey became involved with a man who friends had warned her to avoid. Winfrey would later recall:

"I'd had a relationship with a man for four years. I wasn't living with him. I'd never lived with anyone-and I thought I was worthless without him. The more he rejected me, the more I wanted him. I felt depleted, powerless. At the end I was down on the floor on my knees groveling and pleading with him."

According to Mair's reporting "the major problem with this intense love affair arose from her lover's being married, with no plans to leave his wife". Winfrey became so depressed that on September 8, 1981, she wrote a suicide note to best friend Gayle King instructing King to water her plants.

The Color Purple

December 20, 1985

In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's epic film adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple. She earned immediate acclaim as Sofia, the distraught housewife. The following year Winfrey was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to Anjelica Huston. The Color Purple has now been made into a Broadway musical and opened late 2005, with Winfrey credited as a producer.

Stedman Graham

January 1, 1986 - Now

Winfrey and her partner Stedman Graham have been together since 1986. They were engaged to be married in November 1992, but the ceremony never took place.

The Oprah Winfrey Show

September 8, 1986 - Now

Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking Donahue as the highest rated talk show in Chicago.

Already having surpassed Donahue in the local market, Winfrey's syndicated show quickly doubled his national audience, displacing Donahue as the number one day-time talk show in America. Their much publicized contest was the subject of enormous scrutiny.