As long as there have been two genders, some people have loved them both. There have been bisexual gods (Zeus), generals (Alexander the Great), writers (Simone de Beauvoir) and comics (Margaret Cho). Freud thought everyone was bisexual as a child, and Kinsey's scale measured bisexuality in adults. But where does The O.C. figure into the annals of bi history? Follow our timeline to find out. — Sarah Harrison

Pre-History: As the World Turns

612 B.C.: The L Word  
Ironically, history's most famous lesbian — Sappho, the poet from Lesbos — was probably bisexual. Early historians fixated on her love affairs with women, but after a long career of canoodling with women, it's believed she fell so in love with a ferryman named Phaon that she jumped off a cliff to end her heartache.  

1190: All the King's Men
Richard the Lionheart of England and Philip II of France spent some nights in the same bed and were, according to a contemporary account, “astonished at the passionate love between them.”

1905: Freud Makes Bisexuals of Us All
Sigmund Freud publishes Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, considering sexual aberrations, infantile sexuality and the transformation to puberty. He believes that children are constitutionally bisexual — sex preference appears at puberty.

1906: French-Kissing
Between affairs with men, the author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette set the precedent for Janet, Madonna and Britney when she scandalized the Moulin Rouge by kissing and miming copulation with her cross-dressed girlfriend.

1921: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf's Sexual Orientation?
Surrealist painter Dora Carrington and her gay best friend, writer Lytton Strachey, fall in love with the same man; Dora marries him but all three go on a honeymoon to Venice. Strachey and Carrington were part of the bisexual, spouse-swapping clique of artists and intelligentsia known as the Bloomsberries — “pairs who had affairs in squares,” according to Dorothy Parker — which included Virginia Woolf, her husband Leonard, E.M. Forster and John Meynard Keynes.

1929: Silent Siren
Silent film star Greta Garbo ditches her fiancé, John Gilbert, at the altar. She had several reported same-sex love affairs — her paramours included actress Louise Brooks and socialite Mercedes de Acosta. With her husky, Swedish-accented voice, she made the transition to talking pictures and jet-setting with Aristotle Onassis.

1929: Bisexual Intellectuals
Erotic writer Anaïs Nin meets Henry Miller and wife June Miller in Paris; a literary love triangle ensues that will be commemorated in Nin's diary Henry and June. Synopsis: emotionally draining domesticity and missionary sex with husband; champagne, caviar, and dizzying girl-girl infatuation with June; stiff drinks and sex with Henry Miller.

1948: What's Your Number? Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, a study in which he quantified sexual orientation — a combination of experience and psychological reactions — along a six-point scale.

1966: "Men, Women, Children, Dogs, Cats, Anything"
Robert Redford plays Natalie Wood's bisexual husband in the film Inside Daisy Clover. At Redford's request, his character was changed from gay to bisexual so that he could play him "as a guy who bats ten ways — men, women, children, dogs, cats, anything — anything that salves his ego."

1970s: David Bowie and Iggy Pop
A rumored love affair accompanies an artistic collaboration. The romance is subsequently denied, but famously depicted in glamophilic indie flick Velvet Goldmine.

1972: Life is a Cabaret
In the film version of the musical, Michael York's character tells Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), "Fuck Maximilian." "I do," she says. His reply: "So do I."

1976: "She got me so hot at the rifle range"
On Blondie's debut album, Debbie Harry sings lyrics written by her male bandmates without changing the perspective from male to female. Harry later said she enjoyed "lesbian sex as part of her "pretty exotic lifestyle," but was "probably more heterosexual than I am homosexual, or even bisexual."

1982: Making Love
In this big-budget Hollywood film, a husband (Michael Ontkean) leaves his wife (Charlie's Angels' Kate Jackson) for another man (Harry Hamlin). It features one of the best quasi-pick-up-lines ever: "Do you snore? Does anybody ever get a chance to find out?"

1991: The Dawn of "Sweeps Lesbianism"
On L.A. Law, female attorneys C.J. Lamb (Amanda Donohoe) and Abby Perkins (Michele Greene) share a kiss. Critics herald it as the first lesbian kiss on primetime TV that doesn't result in death or other narrative retribution; however, the storyline is dropped after a follow-up episode, Greene leaves the series at the end of the season and Donohoe departs the next year.

1991: "The magazine for card-carrying bisexuals"
The first national bisexual magazine, Anything That Moves, launches. It folds in 2004.

1994: Woulda, Coulda
In an Advocate cover story, Kurt Cobain says he's a bisexual who hasn't had gay sex. The following year, at the height of the Britpop explosion, Suede star Brett Anderson says the same thing about himself.

1995: Sexual Personae
Not one to be late to a semantic party, Camille Paglia says, "Bisexuality should be the universal norm."

1997: Call Her Crazy
Anne Heche says of her girlfriend, Ellen DeGeneres: "I became oblivious to everything the second I saw Ellen. I'd never been attracted to a woman before. I mean, I loved women, but not at all physically. Within seconds of meeting Ellen, I had my hands on her." They break up three years later; Heche marries a male cameraman in 2001.

2000: Margaret Cho's Epiphany
The comedian says that after identifying as straight, gay and bisexual, she realizes she's "just slutty. Where's my parade?"

2000: The Switching Hour
Buffy the Vampire Slayer's longtime best friend Willow (Alyson Hannigan) leaves her high school boyfriend for a girl she meets at college. Willow and Tara's relationship turns long-term, but the issue of bisexuality is never addressed; Willow is simply "gay now."

2002: Crofting Over
Angelina Jolie becomes the poster girl for the now-acceptable trend of girls saying “I'd do her.”

2003: Unlike a Virgin
A tuxedoed Madonna tongue-kisses Britney Spears at the Video Music Awards. Afterward, Britney gushes, "This is something I've dreamt about since I was a little girl. I cannot believe this just like freakin' happened. I am on a major high right now.”  

2004: Peachy Keen
Electropunk star Peaches sings, “I don't have to make the choice / I like girls and I like boys.”

2005: Mischa Barton Kisses Girls
Previously one-half of the first teenage lesbian kiss on TV in the quickly canceled Once and Again, Mischa Barton plays a fully bisexual character on the past season of The O.C., further complicating the show's already incestuous girlfriend-sharing.