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In 1964, after two years of promoting cryonics, Evan Cooper fumed in exasperation, "Are we shouting in the abyss? How could 110 million go to their deaths without one, at least trying for a life in the future via freezing? Where is the individualism, scientific curiosity, and even eccentricity we hear so much about?"<ref name="SuspensionFailures"/> From 1966 until 1973, of the 17 attempts at freezing, only one person remained cryopreserved<ref name="SuspensionFailures"/> (hence the bumps at the beginning of the curve in the graph below). Consequently, the "pay-as-you-go" funding model was abandoned by the cryonics community as relatives had shown to generally eventually lose interest in paying maintenance fees. From then onward, the number of cryopreservations would grow exponentially, but to this day still represent a trivial amount in comparison to the number of burials and cremations. Since cryonics was first publicized, an estimated 2.9 billion people have died,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ortiz-Ospina|first=Esteban|last2=Roser|first2=Max|date=2019-01-23|title=World Population Growth|url=https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth|journal=Our World in Data}}</ref> which could represent about 2.7% of humans to have ever lived.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.prb.org/howmanypeoplehaveeverlivedonearth/|title=How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth? – Population Reference Bureau|language=en-US|access-date=2019-01-23}}</ref> As of January 2019, 416 people are known to be cryopreserved.

While ways to quantify the quality of preservations have been proposed, notably by [http://www.oregoncryo.com/qualityScores.html OregonCryo], there are currently no systematic analyses done about the quality of current preservations. The following graph is an attempt to track progress of cryopreservation techniques by tracking the biggest mass that was successfully cryopreserved.<ref>{{Citation|last=RomanPlusPlus|title=SPTCR: curated repository of scientific papers on cryonics: RomanPlusPlus/scientific-progress-towards-cryonics|date=2019-01-11|url=https://github.com/RomanPlusPlus/scientific-progress-towards-cryonics|access-date=2019-01-23}}</ref> It doesn't directly track what cryonicists care about, but can be used as a proxy while better metrics are developed.

| 1773-04 || writing || letter || {{W|Benjamin Franklin}} || In a letter to [[wikipedia:Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg|Jacques Dubourg]], {{W|Benjamin Franklin}} says: "I wish it were possible...&nbsp;… to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they might be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to an ordinary death, being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country! But... &nbsp;… in all probability, we live in a century too little advanced, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection...&nbsp;…".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Works_of_the_Late_Doctor_Benjamin_Franklin_(1793).djvu/233|title=Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/233 - Wikisource, the free online library|website=en.wikisource.org|access-date=2019-01-21}}</ref>

| 1773-04 || writing || letter || {{W|Benjamin Franklin}} || In a letter to Jacques Dubourg, {{W|Benjamin Franklin}} says: "I wish it were possible...&nbsp;… to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they might be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to an ordinary death, being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country! But... &nbsp;… in all probability, we live in a century too little advanced, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection...&nbsp;…".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Works_of_the_Late_Doctor_Benjamin_Franklin_(1793).djvu/233|title=Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/233 - Wikisource, the free online library|website=en.wikisource.org|access-date=2019-01-21}}</ref>

| 1960 || writing || communication || {{W|Robert Ettinger}} || Ettinger expected other scientists to advcate advocate for cryonics. Given that this still hasn't happened, Ettinger finally makes the scientific case for cryonics. He sends this to approximately 200 people whom he selected from ''Who's Who in America'', but got little response.<ref name="regis87"/>

| 1976-07-16 || organisation || || {{W|Alcor Life Extension Foundation}} || Alcor performes performs its first human cryopreservation.

| 1977(?) - 1986 || social || || Life Extension Festival || The Life Extension Festival is runned run by {{W|Fred and Linda Chamberlain}}.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=|first=|date=July 1983|title=Report on the Lake Tahoe Life Extension Festival|url=https://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics8307.txt|journal=Cryonics|volume=|issue=36|pages=7-13|via=}}</ref>

| 1980s (mid) || technological adoptoin adoption || vitrification || {{W|Greg Fahy}} and William F. Rall || Researchers {{W|Greg Fahy}} and William F. Rall help introduce {{W|vitrification}} to reproductive cryopreservation.

The rest of the body would be given to a coroner. The coroner's office wouldn't understand that circulation would be artificially restarted after legal death, and that barbiturate would be given to slow down the brain metabolism. Seeing the distributed barbiturate throught throughout the body, they would change the cause of death from natural causes to homicide.

| 1999 || organisation || closing || CryoCare || BioPreservation doesn't renew its contract with CryoCare, and stops offering cryonics services altogether.<ref name="BenBestCryonicsHistory"/> CryoCare doesn't find a new provider.<ref name="BenBestCryonicsHistory"/> They would tansfer transfer their 10 patients from the {{W|American Cryonics Society}} to the Cryonics Institute on 2004-04-06, and their 2 other patients to Alcor on 2001-01-24.<ref name="AlcorCase"/><ref name="BenBestCryonicsHistoryImmortalist"/><ref name="CryoCare/>

| 2002 summer || technological adoption || intermediate storage temperature || {{W|Alcor Life Extension Foundation}} || An Alcor neuropatient receives an excellent uniform perfusion, allowing them to reach the lowest temperature without fracturing ever recorded to date, −128°C. Cryobiologist consultants would evaluate that this may be the best cryopreservation to date. The patient is transferred to the CryoStar freezer for continued slow cooling and annealing for fracture avoidance. However, the patient would be moved to liquid nitrogen in July 2003 as the maneuver wouldn't be succesfulsuccessful. In December, another patient, A-1034, would be also placed into the CryoStar to accommodate the family's preference for this type of storage, and later transferred in a new validated neuroped in April 2006.<ref name="IntermediateTemperatureStorage"/>

| 2002 || social || || Frozen Dead Guy Days festival || After media turmoil from Trygve Bauge having brought his cryopreserved grandfather to the the town of {{W|Nederland, Colorado}}, some people take this opportunity to create an annual Frozen Dead Guy Days festival which would feature coffin races, snow sculptures, and many other activities.

| 2003-10 || R&D || intermediate storage temperature || {{W|21st Century Medicine}} || {{W|21st Century Medicine}}, Inc., constructs a prototype dewar for storage at intermediate temperatre temperature in which most of the volume of the dewar is converted into a uniform-temperature storage space kept cold by liquid nitrogen.<ref name="IntermediateTemperatureStorage"/>

| 2004 || legal || || Cryonics Institute || As a result of media coverage of {{W|Ted Williams}}'s cryopreservation, even though the Cryonics Institute was not involved in that case, the State of Michigan places the organization under a "Cease and Desist" order for six months, ultimately classifying and regulating the Cryonics Institute as a cemetery in 2004. In the spirit of de-regulation, the new Republican Michigan government would remove the cemetary cemetery designation for CI in 2012.<ref name="BenBestCryonicsHistory"/>

| 2005-02 || technological adoptoin adoption || vitrification || Cryonics Institute || The use of {{W|vitrification}} mixture is published for the first time; the subject being the dog Thor.

| 2005-08 || technological adoptoin adoption || vitrification || Cryonics Institute || CI's 69th patient is CI's first patient to be vitrified.

| 2012 || technolocial technological research || field cryoprotection || {{W|Alcor Life Extension Foundation}} || Advanced Neural Biosciences collaborates with Alcor to validate Alcor’s proposed field cryoprotection protocol in the rat model. No ice formation is found after up to 48 hours of storing the brains at dry ice temperature prior to further cooling.<ref name="fieldcryoprotection"/>

| 2016-12-24 || technological adoption || fixation || OregonCryo || For the first time, someone is preserved by being perfused with a fixation solution insead instead of simply being immersed in it. OregonCryo was the organisation that did the preservation.<ref name="OregonCryoCaseReports"/>

Some events that weren't important enough to make it into this timeline are noted in the Google Sheet [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uEvT8oHOQJOOYzYglkFgrEgKbhbkz1A0jdO5OYZPwEk/ Timeline of cryonics - not significant enough].

An exhaustive list of publicly known preserved patients (including a yet incomplete evaluation of the quality of their preservation) can be found in the Google Sheet [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vBrlNvPkPQbLKxtSUlTF_ZpUS4lwW2W7lENRj9Gdk3I List of cryonics patients].

A detailed account of membership statistics of cryonics organisations has been compiled in the Google Sheet [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CW5tyCLp-jGT4ta4k1esDaw-I2eKd7rcI7jhcQEk4NE/ Cryonic members statistics] (although not all organisations share all, or any of their membership statistics). A detailed account of patient statistics has been compiled in the Google Sheet [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15Ix7iocvo5WdNgtC3MSkYlyysV95_TrJjK87Z371FrY/ Cryonic patients statistics]. The membership and patient statistics should be updated at the beginning of every year, after the publication of the statistics from last year.