That surprises me as timelines are mentioned as a specific skills to be taught in the first topic of the Stage 4 history course. It is the very first thing that you should be taught in Year 7 history and I quote from the Stage 4 History syllabus Topic 1 - 'Students learn to: interpret and construct timelines'.
Another skill specified in the history syllabus it to 'select the appropriate form of communication for specific purposes' which would include timelines in my opinion. The third skill from history that implies the ability to construct timelines is 'sequences events within the time period'.
Your teacher would therefore be perfectly correct in assuming that you have been taught this in week one term one of your history studies in Stage 4, if not earlier in your school life.
Going into the Maths syllabus from Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4) Read and interpret simple timetables, timelines and calendars and again from Stage 3 (Year 5 and 6) - Uses twenty-four hour time and am and pm notation in reallife situations and constructs timelines Further down the Maths syllabus - again from Stage 3 Draw and interpret a timeline using a scale. A specific skill in the Stage 3 Maths syllabus sounds like the question your teacher asked: determining a suitable scale and drawing a timeline using the scale
It sounds to me that you are objecting to the fact that your Year 11 teacher didn't revise Primary school maths with you before giving you the assessment task.