Timeline: Key Dates in Otis Chandler’s Life

1917: Harry Chandler takes over as head of The Times after the death of his father-in-law, Harrison Gray Otis

1927: Otis Chandler is born to Harry Chandler’s son Norman and his wife, Dorothy Buffum Chandler.

1937: Otis Chandler is nearly killed in a horse-riding accident.

1944: Harry Chandler dies at age 80 and Norman Chandler becomes publisher.

1946: Otis Chandler graduates from the Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.

1946: Enrolls at Stanford University.

1950: In competition at a West Coast track meet, establishes what is then the third-best shotput mark in history.

1950: Graduates from Stanford.

1951: Marries fellow Stanford student Marilyn Brant. They have five children.

1951-53: Serves in the U.S. Air Force, stationed in the Bay Area, and reaches the rank of first lieutenant.

1952: Is co-captain of the Air Force track team, but injury prevents his tryout for the U.S. team that will compete at the Olympic Games in Helsinki.

1953: Joins Times Mirror Co. and begins a seven-year “executive training” program; eventually works in all Times departments.

1955: Lifting 845 pounds, wins the heavyweight division of a Southern California weightlifting championship.

1955: Writes a seven-part Times series on the care and treatment of emotionally disturbed children.

1960: At age 32, is named publisher of The Times, replacing his father.

1960: Jerry Hulse, a Metro reporter, becomes Travel editor as the paper begins rapid expansion of international coverage.

1961: Under Chandler, the paper recruits prominent journalists. Jim Murray’s column debuts. Committed to expanding its coverage, The Times beefs ups its Washington bureau as President Kennedy takes office.

1961: Chandler is named corporate vice president of Times Mirror’s newspaper division.

1961: After Chandler announces that The Times will cover all sides of the political spectrum, the paper publishes an ambitious and controversial series on the ultraconservative John Birch Society.

1962: The company’s Los Angeles Mirror folds in deal with the Hearst Corp., which closes morning Los Angeles Examiner. Times average weekday circulation hits 757,776, a gain of 204,926 subscribers over the previous year. It is the largest circulation gain of any U.S. newspaper.

1962: Democrat Pat Brown defeats Richard Nixon for governor.

1962-64: The Times opens bureaus in Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Rome, Bonn, London, Vienna and San Francisco, at the United Nations and on Wall Street.

1962: USC awards Chandler its Distinguished Achievement Award for Journalism.

1964: Paul Conrad is hired as editorial cartoonist.

1967: Chandler receives a Columbia Journalism Award for the “extraordinary progress” made by The Times under his tenure.

1968: The Times endorses Alan Cranston, a Democrat, in the race for U.S. Senate.

1973: The Times announces that it will no longer routinely endorse candidates for president, governor or U.S. senator.

1978: Chandler competes in his first professional automobile race, a six-hour endurance contest at Watkins Glen, N.Y.

1980: Assumes the new post of editor in chief of Times Mirror.

1981: Takes over as chairman of Times Mirror board.

1981: Marries Bettina Whitaker after his divorce from Marilyn Chandler becomes final.

1985: Announces that he will step down as chairman and editor in chief of Times Mirror. “People want to stay on the same lane in the freeway, in the same safe cocoon,” Chandler says. “I don’t.”

1986: Becomes chairman of the executive committee of the Times Mirror board.

1990: While Chandler is hunting in the Northwest Territories of Canada, a musk ox tramples him, yanking his right arm from its socket.

1990: Chandler puts his private collection of historic automobiles and motorcycles and wild game trophies into the Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife in Oxnard.

1992: After living in Malibu and Camarillo, Otis and Bettina Chandler move to a small horse ranch in Ojai.

1995: Chandler is injured in a motorcycle accident in New Zealand.

1998: Retires from the Times Mirror board. The Chandlers build a new home in Ojai.

1999: In a statement dictated to the city editor of The Times and read to the staff, Chandler criticizes the senior management team for a controversial deal to share with Staples Center the profits from a special issue of the Los Angeles Times Magazine on the new downtown arena.

2000: The Annenberg School for Communication at USC gives Chandler its first Lifetime Achievement Award.

2000: Times Mirror is purchased by Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune. Disenchanted with Times Mirror’s management, Chandler praises the merger.

2006: Chandler dies Feb. 27.

Compiled by Times researcher John L. Jackson