1650 "Sermón del mandato" delivered by the famous Portuguese Jesuit orator, Antonio Vieira.
1651 Juana de Asbaje y Ramírez, born in San Miguel Nepantla, México, on November 12.
1654 Learns to read from the "amiga" of Amecameca.
1658 Composes a loa to the Holy Sacrament.
1660 Goes to live with her grandfather in Mexico City.
1662 Enters the court of the Viceroy's wife, the Marquise of Mancera.
1667 Enters the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Joseph on August 14. Leaves the convent after three months, on November 18.
1669 Enters the Convent of the Order of St. Jerome on February 21, and remains there until her death. Writes her will. Her mother gives her a slave, Juana de San José, as a servant.
1680 Writes Neptuno alegórico in honor of the viceroy, Tomás de la Cerda, Marquise of La Laguna. Probable date of the composition of "Hombres necios que acusáis"...
1681 Probable date of the composition of the "Autodefensa espiritual," also known as the "Carta de Monterrey."
1683 Los empeños de una casa (The Trials of a Noble House), a play.
1684 Sor Juana sells her slave to her sister, Josefa María.
1688 Isabel Ramírez, Sor Juana's mother, dies.
1689 Performance of Amor es más laberinto (Love the Greater Labyrinth), at the palace. Inundación castálida is published in Madrid.
1690 The Carta atenagórica (The Athenagoric Letter), published by the bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz. In this letter Sor Juana criticizes the1650 sermon of the famous Portuguese Jesuit, Antonio de Vieyra. El divino Narciso (The Divine Narcisus), a sacramental play, is published in Mexico. Crisis of 1690, and breaks with her confessor, Núñez de Miranda.
1691 Composes Respuesta a sor Filotea, three months after the publication of Carta atenagórica. The Respuesta is published posthumously. Published in Puebla, the villancicos (carols) to Santa Catarina de Alejandría, composed for the cathedral of Antequera (Oaxaca).
1692 First edition of Vol. II of her works (Seville), Segundo volumen. It includes: El sueño, published for the first time; El cetro de José, El mártir del Sacramento, San Hermenegildo, and El Divino Narciso; Los empeños de una casa and Amor es más laberinto; Crisis sobre un sermón (Carta atenagórica).
1692-1694 Sor Juana confesses with Pedro de Arellano y Sosa, a spiritual son of the Jesuit, Antonio Núñez de Miranda.
1693 Pens Petición que en forma causídica presenta al Tribunal DivinoS" without date, but her biographer, Diego Calleja, dates it in 1693.
1694 Writes Profesión of the faith signed with her own blood (La protesta que rubrica con su sangre), on March 5. Sor Juana returns to the spiritual guidance of Núñez de Miranda until his death two months before her own. Docta explicación del MisterioS
1695 Sor Juana dies on April 17.
1700 First edition of Vol. III of her works (Madrid), Fama y obras póstumas, with approval by the Jesuit, Diego Calleja. It includes the Respuesta a Sor Filotea (The Reply to Sor Filotea), published for the first time.
1713 First portrait, painted posthumously by Juan de Miranda for the Jeromite convent.
1861 The Jeromite Convent closes.

Taken from http://www.oocities.org/CollegePark/Quad/4207/Diana1.html ~ Accessed May 17, 2001.

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was born Juana Asbaje on November 12, 1651 in San Miguel de Nepantla, a village 70 kilometers to the southeast of Mexico City. Her father, Pedro Manuel de Asbaje y Vargas, was a native of the Basque region of Spain and her mother, Isabel Ramirez de Santillana, was Mexican born. Sor Juana was an extraordinary genius who learned to read and write, at the age of 3, behind her mother's back. At six or seven she heard about the University of Mexico and envisioned herself attending it, which was unheard of at the time, as women were not allowed to pursue an education past learning to read the Bible. Another of her ideas was to dress as a man in order to be excepted. This too was unheard of. She looked for ways to satisfy her hunger for learning and continued to so regardless of punishment and ridicule. It was during this time that she wrote "Loa Eucharistia," a theological poem about the Catholic sacrament of Communion. This poem has since been lost. At 9 years of age, while visiting relatives in Mexico City, she learned to read Latin in 9 lessons. While in the court of the viceroy Mancera, at the age of 15, she was examined before 40 doctors of all the sciences of the time and passed with a resounding triumph.
Her religious life began in 1667, at the age of 16, when she entered a convent of the Barefoot Carmelites. She left 3 months later because she had so little time for study there. At 18 she entered the Convent of Saint Jerome working as an accountant and file clerk, which in turn gave her the opportunity to spend time studying and writing. While at the Saint Jerome convent she acquired one of the largest libraries of the time, which cost her, in her own words, "hate, malevolence, persecution, and suffering." Much as she had suffered her whole life for having her own views and voicing them in an age when women did not speak unless spoken to.
Between 1669 and 1691 she wrote much of the literature which has survived and given her the fame of the first female theologian of the Americas. Along with the satisfaction she received in her writing she also received many admonitions from the parish priests and bishops from surrounding areas because women were not supposed to devote time to the world of literature. It was at the end of this period in which she made her biggest mistake which was to criticize Antonio de Vieira, a well-known, widely respected Jesuit priest and preacher. While being reprimanded she also won over many other religious brothers and sisters who agreed with her but did not have the courage to voice their own opinions.
Her life started to change in 1692 when Mexico suffered crisis after crisis of fires, hunger, rebellions, and bad harvest. At this time she lived more in the world of the convent and less in the outside world. By 1693 Sor Juana had undergone a complete spiritual change which involved a nearly exclusive dedication to contemplative life and service. She also ceased writing philosophical, theological, and literary works. In 1694 the convent of Saint Jerome released the Book of Professions which more than likely contained Sor Juana's last document. It revealed the complete surrender, into the hands of both God and the church, from the woman whose priest had once feared would never "earn" salvation. In the Book of Professions she reaffirmed her vows as a religious person as well as including a prayer of confession of sins and a statement of faith in forgiveness and grace. In it there was a clear sense of seriousness, a moving sense of sorrow, and a deep feeling of freedom. She had placed herself under such strict and torturous behavior that her superiors had placed her under a sort of supervision.
At the beginning of 1695 a plague over took much of Mexico and it invited itself into the Convent of Saint Jerome. She took it upon herself to care for the ill stricken within the convent walls. She herself succumbed to the plague and thus came the end of the foremost female poet of Colonial Mexico and the first female theologian of the Americas. She died the morning of April 17, 1695 within the Convent of Saint Jerome.
Matus, Eugenio. Literatura Hispanoamericana de la Conquista y La Colonia. Editorial Nacional de Cuba: Havana, 1965.
Webster, John and Ellen. The Church and Women in the Third World. Westminster Press: Philadelphia, 1985.