| 2009 | Formed by Joy Williams (Santa Cruz, CA) and John Paul White (Florence, AL) after a chance Nashville meeting; their second-ever performance, a sold-out Eddie's Attic set, was recorded and released as a free digital album downloaded over 100,000 times. |
| 2009 | 'Poison & Wine', the title track of their debut EP, aired in full during Grey's Anatomy episode 609 ('New History'), introducing the duo to a primetime television audience and driving the EP to #4 on iTunes' Singer/Songwriter chart. |
| 2011 | Debut full-length 'Barton Hollow' landed at #1 on iTunes albums chart and #10 on the Billboard 200 its opening week, establishing the duo as the defining voice of the folk-noir sound emerging from Nashville. |
| 2011 | 'Barton Hollow' won two Grammy Awards, Best Folk Album and Best Country Duo/Group Performance, at the 54th Grammy Awards, where the pair performed live and introduced Taylor Swift's set. |
| 2011 | Co-wrote and recorded 'Safe & Sound' with Taylor Swift and producer T-Bone Burnett in a single session for 'The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond'; the track became one of the most-streamed songs from the blockbuster franchise's soundtrack. |
| 2012 | Abruptly cancelled their international tour citing 'internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition', sending the music world into speculation about the duo's future while their catalogue continued climbing the charts. |
| 2013 | Self-titled sophomore album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, selling 116,000 copies in its first week, a remarkable feat for a duo recording in estrangement who had not performed together in over a year. |
| 2013 | 'From This Valley', drawn from the self-titled album, won the Grammy for Best Country Duo/Group Performance, the duo's fourth Grammy, months before Williams and White formally disbanded. |
| 2014 | Joy Williams and John Paul White officially dissolved the partnership, with White subsequently founding the independent label Single Lock Records in Florence, Alabama, and Williams pursuing a solo path that yielded the Grammy-nominated 'Front Porch' in 2018. |
| 2025 | 'If I Didn't Know Better (From the Vault)' surfaced as a new single, keeping the Civil Wars catalog in active circulation more than a decade after the duo's breakup. |
