Hi Air,
Og has provided several references for non-MS Office products for producing timelines. Within the MS Office products the ones for
timeline, depending on your frequency of needs (ongoing update or just for a presentation)and the level of details are
MS Office Project (scheduling on timeline)
MS Office Visio (has a timeline creation Wizard)
MS Office Excel (columns make nice time dividers <g>)
You can also make a timeline representation in Powerpoint, Publisher and Word, OneNote, etc.

For example, there are timeline
template available on
http://office.microsoft.com/templates
for Word, Excel, Visio, Project and Powerpoint. Reviewing those may give help you to choose the app you're most comfortable in to
produce the results you need.
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Hello...I've been using MS Office for quite some time. So, I was surprised
when the answer to this question didn't just jump to mind. What is the best
application to use to create a timeline? Ideally, I would like it to combine
images and text. Thx.>>
--
Bob Buckland ?

MS Office System Products MVP
*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*