Tiago Madeira

The website of the brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo has a nice way to 
display news in a retrospective-style (check <a href="http://blog.tiagomadeira.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/estadao.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc">this 
screenshot</a> 
or <a href="http://www.estadao.com.br/especiais/choque-nas-ruas,158638.htm" rel="nofollow ugc">this link</a> 
— Flash required).
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could display WordPress posts in our pages and 
categories in the same way just by using a shortcode? The possibilities are 
many. That’s why I wrote the Retrospective plugin for WordPress.
It has at least two advantages over the version you just saw:
<ul>
<li>Does not require Flash (its implementation uses only CSS and jQuery)</li>
<li>Has a option to respect the (time-)scale of the posts.</li>
</ul>
See Installation for more info on how to use it.

Retrospective

Retrospective plugin displays last posts or posts from a specific category in a nice-looking "retrospective" way using a shortcode.

scribu

Smart Archives Reloaded allows you to display a list of posts grouped by year and month. It also provides several interesting navigation elements.
Format list:
<ul>
<li>list = a list of posts grouped by month</li>
<li>block = a compact block of links to year and date archive pages</li>
<li>menu = a two-level menu with links to year and date archive pages</li>
<li>both = block + list (<a href="http://scribu.net/archive" rel="nofollow ugc">example</a>)</li>
<li>fancy = menu + list + JavaScript (<a href="http://www.conceptfusion.co.nz/archive" rel="nofollow ugc">example</a>)</li>
</ul>
No support
I do not offer support for this plugin, either free or paid.
Credits:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://justinblanton.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Justin Blanton</a>, for the original <a href="http://justinblanton.com/projects/smartarchives/" rel="nofollow ugc">Smart Archives</a> plugin</li>
<li><a href="http://www.conceptfusion.co.nz/" rel="nofollow ugc">Simon Pritchard</a>, for the fancy format</li>
</ul>
Links: <a href="http://scribu.net/wordpress/smart-archives-reloaded" rel="nofollow ugc">Plugin News</a> | <a href="http://scribu.net" rel="nofollow ugc">Author’s Site</a>

Smart Archives Reloaded

Easily display posts grouped by year and month, in one or more elegant formats

Retrospective vs Smart Archives Reloaded