David Hume

Birth in Edinburgh	1711
University of Edinburgh		Hume attended the University of Edinburgh but did not receive a degree there.
Law and Banking		Hume worked for a while in law and banking.
Travel France		Hume traveled in France for a long while, and it was there that he did much work on A Treatise of Human Nature.
Treatise of Human Nature	1740	David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature was published in 1740. Scarcely anyone bothered to read nor comment on the large, deep and clearly time-intensive book. It was a big disappointment for Hume.
	mid-1740s	Hume was declined for a Chair of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
Private Tutor		As was common for someone in his position, Hume took private employment as a tutor for a wealthy family.
	1748-1752	Hume finished two smaller books called Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Inquiry Concerning Principles of Moral, which mostly rehashed the Treatise.
	1752	Hume was turned down again for a Chair of Philosophy, this time at the University of Glasgow.
History of England	mid-1750s	Hume's big break came when he published his long, multi-volume History of England. He attained fame as a historian and public intellectual, but not so much as a philosopher.
Flourishing Career	1750s	Hume always paid attention to religion, on which he had unconventional views. There were attempts in the 1750s in Edinburgh to take legal proceedings against him for his unconventional religious views. Nonetheless he flourished in the 1750s and 1760s until his death.
Death	1776
Dialogues	1779	Three years after his death, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was published. Likely this delay was because it dealt with sensitive religious issues.