Weird CSS in Internet Explorer (Concerning margins, I believe) - html

Question

I've got a weird rendering issue in IE concerning an inline unordered list. What I'm trying to do is make a visualizer for the lifespan of a project, but whenever I try to add in any text in my <p> object designed to hold a time period, it shifts the whole <li> element down, but only in Internet Explorer.
Please, take a gander at this issue: https://jsfiddle.net/xny1zv3j/
I'm okay with the name and position (ex: 'John' and 'Project Lead' being pulled down - that's not an issue for me. But in IE, and IE only, it seems as if the entire list element is pulled down. When the <p> element is empty, it's simply ignored, and is fine in all browsers, but when it has content, IE freaks out.

Answer 1

You should be able to simply add vertical-align: top to your .li class.

Answer 2

Is this what you are shooting for? https://jsfiddle.net/xny1zv3j/3/
HTML
<div class="container body-content">
<div class="container" id="main-container">
<ul class="timeline">
<li class="li" >
<div class="timestamp">
<div class="author">John</div>
<div class="date">Project Lead</div>
</div>
<div class="status">
<div class="time-period">
<p></p>
</div>
<h4>Created Project</h4>
</div>
</li>
<li class="li" >
<div class="timestamp">
<div class="author">Jenny</div>
<div class="date">Programmer</div>
</div>
<div class="status">
<div class="time-period">
<p></p>
</div>
<h4>Built Project</h4>
</div>
</li>
<li class="li" >
<div class="timestamp">
<div class="author">Jeremy</div>
<div class="date">Marketing</div>
</div>
<div class="status">
<div class="time-period">
<p>2 yrs</p>
</div>
<h4>Advertised Project</h4>
</div>
</li>
<li class="li" >
<div class="timestamp">
<div class="author">Jack</div>
<div class="date">Sales</div>
</div>
<div class="status">
<div class="time-period">
<p></p>
</div>
<h4>Sold Project</h4>
</div>
</li>
<li class="li" >
<div class="timestamp">
<div class="author">Jebeddiah</div>
<div class="date">IT</div>
</div>
<div class="status">
<div class="time-period">
<p></p>
</div>
<h4>Defended Project</h4>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
CSS
.timeline {
text-align: left;
list-style-type: none;
display: inline-block;
margin-bottom:-23px;
padding-top: 0px;
padding-bottom: 0px;
padding-left: 5px;
padding-right: 5px;
}
.li {
width: 150px;
display: inline-block;
}
.timestamp {
margin-bottom: 20px;
padding: 0px;
font-weight: 100;
display: block;
white-space: nowrap;
overflow: hidden;
}
.status {
padding-top: 10px;
position: relative;
transition: all 200ms ease-in;
white-space: normal;
}
.status h4 {
white-space: nowrap;
overflow: hidden;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
word-wrap: break-word;
padding-bottom: 3px;
}
.time-period {
display: inline;
text-align: center; }
.time-period p {
/* margin: -30px 0px 20px;*/
}
.time-period p:empty {
display:inline-block;
}