How to create a timeline with LaTeX?

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 something similar in LaTeX?

The tikz package seems to have what you want.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{snakes}

\begin{document}

  \begin{tikzpicture}[snake=zigzag, line before snake = 5mm, line after snake = 5mm]
    % draw horizontal line   
    \draw (0,0) -- (2,0);
    \draw[snake] (2,0) -- (4,0);
    \draw (4,0) -- (5,0);
    \draw[snake] (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}

I'm not too expert with tikz, but this does give a good timeline, which looks like: