Pennywise Timeline

IT, known as Pennywise the Clown, formed outside our universe, unexplored by humans, in a place called the Macroverse.

Millions of years ago, IT crashed from outer space onto Earth. It landed exactly where Derry, Maine, would later be founded. Pennywise slept there until his terror began in the town.

In 1740, all 300-plus residents of Derry suddenly vanished, like a lost Roanoke colony. Only bloody clothes remained, showing someone had been there.

The disappearances continued until everyone was gone. Pennywise then got his first real taste of human blood.

In 1851, a Derry man named John Markson committed familicide. He poisoned his entire family and then killed himself with nightshade mushroom.

Pennywise began taking power from Derry's people and the violence they caused. Bad things happened in the town with the clown.

In a 1904 bar, lumberjack Claude Heroux went wild. He murdered 12 men with his axe. An angry mob then formed and hanged him for his violence.

Decades later, the Losers Club returned as adults and studied Derry's history. Mike asked a witness about the mob. The witness said he saw a "comical sorta fella" sporadically.

1906. An Easter Egg hunt celebrated by Derry’s children turned tragic. The Kitchener Ironworks facility exploded. It killed 102 people. Eighty-eight of those dead were children.

The explosion happened even though all Ironworks machines were shut before the event. No one knew the cause of the blast.

IT slept again after the tragedy. Many bodies seemed to satisfy it, preparing for another 27-year sleep.

Pennywise awoke when a mob of Derry townsfolk attacked the Bradley Gang. The gang murdered Derry store owners. The townsfolk grabbed guns and shot up the gang's hideout.

The 1990 TV miniseries.IT, Mike Hanlon speaks with a witness of the shooting. The witness claims several people saw a clown in the violence. Each eyewitness placed the clown in a different spot, even though the incidents happened at the same time.

In 1930, Pennywise influenced and saw another violent act: a northern Ku Klux Klan group burned down a nightclub serving African Americans.

Pennywise showed up as a giant bird with balloons on its wings. William, Mike Hanlon’s father, saw it. After the violence ended, IT went back to sleep. The next time it surfaced in Derry, it met the Losers Club.

Dick Halloran, a young victim of the Black Spot fire who escaped safely, became the chef at the Overlook Hotel and played a part in another Stephen King story.The Shining.

Here is a breakdown of the major IT adaptations.ITThe 2017 film version is set in 1989, not 1957, matching the childhood part of King's novel. The TV miniseries sections take place in the '60s and '90s.

With the popularity ofStranger Things, which came out just one year beforeIT(2017), the '80s looked like a more nostalgic and money-making time for Warner Bros.'s feature-film takes. The story's core stays the same. Adaptations needed some changes; for instance, the feature film had the Black Spot burn down in the 1960s, not the 1930s.

Twenty-seven years after the Black Spot fire, Pennywise started showing his face again in Derry's sewers and tunnels. Rising from sleep after a man killed his own son, the clown began hunting his prey, using their worst fears to scare them.

Pennywise eats children because they scare easily. IT lore states this.ITFear in the human body acts like seasoning for the ancient, crazy clown.

The Losers Club first noticed IT after Bill Denbrough's little brother, Georgie, disappeared. Pennywise lured him into a storm drain, tore off his arm, and likely ate him. This sent Bill and his friends into a cycle of teenage murders and missing people in Derry.

They soon found Derry had a huge number ofunsolved missing person cases, plus the town's history of death and violence. Pennywise began targeting each Loser one by one in its fear campaign. But the Losers teamed up and defeated the clown in its sewer lair, forcing it back into early sleep.

In King’s story11/22/63, which follows a teacher, Jake Epping, traveling back to stop JFK’s assassination. The author briefly visits Derry. There, he meets Losers Club members Beverly and Richie, and a scarier link toITis also made clear.

When Epping visits the Kitchener Ironworks (the place ofIT's deadly Easter explosion). He feels a strange pull toward a large pipe full of chewed-up bones.

He hears a voice in his head trying to pull him in. He thinks better of the risky trip and leaves. He should know how close he was to becoming Pennywise's victim in Derry.

About 27 years after meeting the Losers Club, Pennywise reappears. Bullies harass and attack a gay couple, throwing Adrian off a bridge.

Adrian falls into the river. He sees and soon dies from a starving killer clown, scarier than homophobic teens. This attack wakes Pennywise for his terror in Derry, ME, and all its young people.

InIt: Chapter 2Pennywise leaves a blood message at the crime scene for the Losers Club. Pennywise wrote, “Come Home,” three times.

Children return to Derry. Derry's missing-person cases rise. Mike Hanlon, the only Loser staying home, tells the others they must finish what they began.

Reunited amid a bloody display of the town's youth, the group finds they must finish the Ritual of Chüd to defeat Pennywise. The ritual needs items from their past; they must revisit old nightmares to get them.

Pennywise feeds on the town's children while threatening the Losers Club and their loved ones.

The group gathers deep in Pennywise’s sewer again. They perform the ritual, causing a huge fight between the clown and the older club members determined to save their town and future generations from their pain. The ritual works—until it stops.

Instead of beating Pennywise and going home, a giant Pennywise-shaped spider attacks the Losers. The tribespeople who made the ritual centuries ago did not go that far, but the Losers Club shows heart.

The group unites again. They focus their efforts. They defeat Pennywise by showing no fear and attacking him. Eddie dies. After the Losers escape the sewer, they must accept losing their friend.

Having beaten the foreign being, the Losers can finally let go of their pasts and move on. The only question remains: how can they be sure Pennywise is gone forever?

In King’s 1987 bookThe TommyknockersTommy, the protagonist, must stop for supplies in Derry, ME. There, he sees a strange sight: a clown with shiny silver dollars for eyes sitting inside a storm drain as he drives by.

This is the sole official appearance of Pennywise outside.IT.

In another King work, 2001'sDreamcatcherA character named Mr. Gray visits Derry. He finds a plaque honoring all the lives Pennywise took. Mr. Gray then sees the plaque spray-painted with “Pennywise Lives.”

This feeling is scary. Perhaps King means more is coming.the scariest clownin town?