How to create a timeline with LaTeX?

Question

In history-books you often have timeline, where events and periods are marked on a line in the correct relative distance to each other. How is it possible to create somethin

Answer 1

Just an update.

The present TiKZ package will issue: Package tikz Warning: Snakes have been superseded by decorations. Please use the decoration libraries instead of the snakes library on input line. . .

So the pertaining part of code has to be changed to:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
%draw horizontal line
\draw (0,0) -- (2,0);
\draw[decorate,decoration={snake,pre length=5mm, post length=5mm}] (2,0) -- (4,0);
\draw (4,0) -- (5,0);
\draw[decorate,decoration={snake,pre length=5mm, post length=5mm}] (5,0) -- (7,0);

%draw vertical lines
\foreach \x in {0,1,2,4,5,7}
\draw (\x cm,3pt) -- (\x cm,-3pt);

%draw nodes
\draw (0,0) node[below=3pt] {$ 0 $} node[above=3pt] {$   $};
\draw (1,0) node[below=3pt] {$ 1 $} node[above=3pt] {$ 10 $};
\draw (2,0) node[below=3pt] {$ 2 $} node[above=3pt] {$ 20 $};
\draw (3,0) node[below=3pt] {$  $} node[above=3pt] {$  $};
\draw (4,0) node[below=3pt] {$ 5 $} node[above=3pt] {$ 50 $};
\draw (5,0) node[below=3pt] {$ 6 $} node[above=3pt] {$ 60 $};
\draw (6,0) node[below=3pt] {$  $} node[above=3pt] {$  $};
\draw (7,0) node[below=3pt] {$ n $} node[above=3pt] {$ 10n $};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

HTH