1968: In the sleepy Toronto suburb of Willowdale, singer-bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson form the bluesy rock group Rush. For the most part, John Rutsey is the trio's drummer.
1974: Neil Peart replaces Rutsey on drums, and two weeks before the group's first U.S. tour in July, the band releases its self-titled debut album.
1975: Rush wins a Juno for the most promising group of the year.
1976: The trio fulfils some of its promise by releasing the conceptual album 2112, its first million-selling record and a breakthrough into the U.S. market.
1978: A Globe and Mail review of Hemispheres concludes with the assertion that the album "can only increase the suspicion that whatever level of literacy rock musicians may attain, the heavy-metal idiom and progressivism are a fundamental contradiction."
1980: On the Permanent Waves album, singer Lee is credited with playing bass guitars, Oberheim polyphonic, OB-1, Minimoog, and Taurus pedal synthesizers.
1983: The road-hogging Rush sells out London's Wembley Arena for four consecutive nights, and fills New York's Radio City Music Hall for five.
1984: Peart begins using electronic drums, as heard on Grace Under Pressure.
1991: Rush returns to a more guitar-orientated sound on Roll the Bones, an album which centres on lyricist Peart's existentialist philosophy. "I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate," Lee sings for Peart, on Ghost of a Chance.
1997: Tragedy strikes when Peart's daughter dies in an automobile accident, followed by his wife Jacqueline's death from cancer in 1998. The band takes a five-year hiatus.
2002: The comeback album Vapor Trails is supported by the first Rush tour in six years.
2003: With fellow headliners AC/DC, Justin Timberlake and the Rolling Stones, Rush performs at a SARS benefit concert in Toronto that draws an estimated 475,000 people, the largest outdoor ticketed event in Canadian history.
2008: Rush finally earns acceptance as a genuine legendary rock band, appearing on The Colbert Report, followed by a significant cameo in the 2009 hit comedy I Love You, Man.
2010: The band announces its Time Machine Tour, scheduled to begin in New Mexico on June 29. The concerts are to include the performance of the entire Moving Pictures album from 1981.
2112: Rush is finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Brad Wheeler