Timeline idea

I have decided to show the historical aspects of portraiture in the form of an interactive time line. It would be easy to create points on a line and add buttons for a user to press to navigate the time line but instead I would like something a little bit more interactive and unique for this application. I would like some form of slide that the user can drag to navigate to the different parts of the timeline.

Here are some timelines I looked at as part of my research:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/timelines/british/index_embed.shtml

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/50th/main.html

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/seamonsters/timeline/index.html#latecretaceous

http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/index.html

http://trailblazing.royalsociety.org/