Methods for maintaining context of data when displaying information in the form of a timeline across various display devices can be performed using a timeline generation system. The timeline generation system generates a container within a graphical user interface, where the container is proportional to a display device. A timeline is determined and segmented into columns based on the size of the container and a length of time represented by the timeline or the displayed portion of the timeline. Ranges of time represented by the columns of the timeline are provided in an intuitive manner, so that the timeline can provide easy-to-understand data regardless of timeline size or the length of time it represents. The resulting columnized timeline can be arranged on the display device based on sections of the timeline determined based on the number of columns and the size of the container.