Rage Against the Machine

1991
Guitarist Tom Morello left his old band, Lock Up, looking to start another band. He was in a club in LA where Zack de la Rocha was freestyle rapping. Morello was impressed, people said, by de la Rocha's lyric books, and asked him to be a rapper in a band. Morello drafted drummer Brad Wilk of Greta, who had previously auditioned for Lock Up, while de la Rocha convinced his childhood friend Tim Commerford to join as bassist. The newly christened Rage Against the Machine named themselves after a song de la Rocha had written for his former popular underground hardcore punk band, Inside Out. .

First public performance in Orange County, California, where a friend of Commerford's was holding a house party.

DEC The blueprint for the group's major-label debut album, demo tape Rage Against the Machine, was laid on a twelve-song self-released cassette,

Several record labels expressed interest, and the band eventually signed with Epic Records

1992
NOV [11] The band's debut album, Rage Against the Machine, is released. It would later reach triple platinum status, The album's cover featured Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon in 1963 in protest of the murder of Buddhists by the US-backed Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm's regime

Released the song "Killing in the Name," a heavy, driving track featuring only eight lines of lyrics. The "Fuck You" version, which contains 17 iterations of the word fuck, was once played on the BBC Radio 1 Top 40 singles show.

The band went on tour, playing at Lollapalooza 1993 and as support for Suicidal Tendencies in Europe.

The band appeared on the soundtrack for the film Higher Learning with the song "Year of tha Boomerang." An early version of "Tire Me" also appeared during the movie. Subsequently, they re-recorded the song "Darkness" from their original demo for the soundtrack of The Crow and also "No Shelter" appeared on the Godzilla soundtrack.

1996
APR [16] Rage Against The Machine's second album, Evil Empire, is released. It entered Billboard's Top 200 chart at number one

The song "Bulls on Parade" was performed on Saturday Night Live. Their planned two-song performance was cut to one song when the band attempted to hang inverted US flags from their amplifiers ("a sign of distress or great danger"), a protest against having Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes as guest host on the program that night

1997
The band opened for U2 on their PopMart Tour, for which all Rage's profits went to support social organizations

Rage subsequently began an abortive headlining US tour with special guests Wu-Tang Clan. Police in several jurisdictions unsuccessfully attempted to have the concerts cancelled, citing amongst other reasons, the bands' "violent and anti-law enforcement philosophies

On the Japan leg of their tour promoting Evil Empire, a bootleg album composed of the band's B-side recordings titled Live & Rare was released by Sony Records.

NOV [25] A live video, titled Rage Against the Machine, is released. Peak at #2 on the Billboard Top Music Video chart. US: 2 x Platinum

1998
JUNE [30] The album Live & Rare is released

1999
NOV [2] The album The Battle of Los Angeles is released. It debuted at number one, selling 450,000 copies the first week and then going double-platinum.

The song "Wake Up" was featured on the soundtrack of the film The Matrix.

The track "Calm Like a Bomb" was later featured in the film's sequel, 2003s The Matrix Reloaded.

2000
the band planned to support the Beastie Boys on the "Rhyme and Reason" tour; however, the tour was canceled when Beastie Boys drummer Mike D suffered a serious injury

OCT [18] de la Rocha released a statement announcing his departure from the band.

DEC [5] The band's final studio album, Renegades, is released shortly after the band's dissolution. It is a collection of covers.

2001
FEB [20] Saw the release of another live video, The Battle of Mexico City

2002
After the group's breakup, Morello, Wilk, and Commerford teamed up with former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell to form a new band, Audioslave, after briefly searching for a vocalist to replace De La Rocha

NOV The first Audioslave single, "Cochise", was released, and the debut album, Audioslave

2003
NOV [25] Saw the release of a live album titled Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium, an edited recording of the band's final two concerts on September 12 and 13, 2000 at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. It was accompanied by an expanded DVD release of the last show, and also included the previously unreleased music video for "Bombtrack"

Morello began his own solo career, playing political acoustic folk music at open-mic nights and various clubs under the alias The Nightwatchman. He first participated in Billy Bragg's Tell Us the Truth tour with no plans to record, but later recorded a song for Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11, "No One Left"

2005
Their second album Out of Exile debuted at the number one position on the Billboard charts

2006
SEP [5] The band released a third album named Revelations on September 5, 2006. The band vowed to have a "one-album-per-year" schedule, until the departure of Chris Cornell on February 15, 2007

2007
In February 2007, he announced a solo album, entitled One Man Revolution, which was released in April 2007

JAN Rumors that Rage Against the Machine could reunite at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival were circulating and were confirmed on January 22.

The band was confirmed to be headlining the final day of Coachella 2007. Though the performance was initially thought to be a one-off, this turned out not to be the case.

APR [14] Morello and de la Rocha reunited onstage early to perform a brief acoustic set at a Coalition of Immokalee Workers rally in downtown Chicago.

[29] This was followed by the scheduled Coachella performance, where the band staged a much anticipated performance in front of an EZLN backdrop to the largest crowds of the festival

2008
Rage Against the Machine continued to tour in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan, and also played a series of shows in Europe in Summer 2008 including Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, Pinkpop Festival, T in the Park in Scotland, the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, the Reading and Leeds Festivals in England and the Oxegen Festival in Ireland.

AUG [2] The band performed, in Chicago as one of the headliners (Radiohead, Kanye West and Nine Inch Nails being the other three) for the Lollapalooza Music Festival.

Morello followed up his first studio album with "The Fabled City" which was released on September 30, 2008.

APR [7] Morello has reportedly chosen not to comment about the possibility of a new album when interviewed by MTV News

JULY It was revealed that de la Rocha had begun a new project called One Day as a Lion with drummer Jon Theodore formerly of The Mars Volta, with an eponymous EP released on July 22, 2008.[39]

DEC Tom Morello revealed that Rage Against the Machine shows in 2009 were a possibility, although plans for the band to record a new studio album were very unlikely

2009
APR Morello was asked about a new album from Rage Against The Machine, replied "Not anytime soon" but also said that "There may be some more Rage shows in the future"