September 1968: Tupac's mother, Afeni Shakur, joins the New York Black Panther party at age 22.

April 1969: Afeni's is arrested and charged with conspiracy to bomb several public areas in New York City. While out on bail, Afeni courts two men: Legs, a local hood, and Billy, a member of the party.
February 1971: Afeni, pregnant with Tupac, has her bail revoked; she's sent to the Women's House of Detention in Greenwich Village.
June 16th 1971: Shortly after his mom is acquitted on bombing charges, Tupac Amaru Shakur is born in New York. Tupac Amaru is Inca Words meaning "shining serpent." Shakur is Arabic for Thankful to God.
1975-1983: Tupac's family shuttles between the Bronx and Harlem, at times living in shelters.
1983: Legs comes to live with the Shakur family; Tupac "claims" him as his father. Legs introduced Afeni to Crack.
September 1983: Afeni enrols 12-year-old Tupac in the 127th Street Ensemble, a Harlem theatre group. In his first performance, Tupac plays Travis in a Raisin the Sun.
June 1986: The Shakur family moves to Baltimore as MC New York Tupac writes his first rap.
September 1986: Tupac enrols at the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studies ballet and acting.
June 1988: Tupac and his family move to Marine City, California "Leaving that school affected me so much," he said later. "I see that as the point where I got off track." Shortly after, Tupac moves in with a neighbour and begins selling drugs.
August 1988: Mutulu Shakur, Tupac's stepfather, is sentenced to sixty years in prison for his involvement in a 1981 armoured-car robbery.
1990: Tupac joins Digital Underground as a rowdy/dancer/rapper. While on tour, he learns that his mother is using crack.
January 3rd 1991: Tupac makes his recording debut on DU's. This is an E.P. Release.
November 12th 1991: 2Pacaplypse Now is released. Shortly thereafter, Tupac files a $10 million lawsuit against the Oakland police for alleged brutality following an arrest for jaywalking.
January 17th 1992: Tupac makes his big-screen debut in Ernest Dickerson's Juice, earning praise for his portrayal of Bishop. He is perhaps best remembered for the line "I am crazy, and you know what else? I don't give a fuck!"
April 11th 1992: Ronald Ray Howard, 19, shoots a Texas trooper. Howard's attorney claims 2Pacalypse Now, which was in his client's tape deck, incited him to kill.
August 22nd 1992: Tupac has an altercation with old acquaintances in Marine City. A 6 year old bystander is shot in the head. Tupac's half brother, Maurice Harding is arrested but released due to lack of evidence.
September 22nd 1992: Tupac is denounced by Vice President Dan Quayle, who says 2Pacalypse Now "has no place in our society."
February 1st 1993: Strictly 4 My NIGGAZ is released and eventually goes platinum.
March 13th 1993: Tupac has a fight with a limo driver in Hollywood who accuses him of using drugs in the car. Tupac's arrested but the charges are dropped.
April 5, 1993: Tupac is arrested in Lansing Michigan, for taking a swing at a local rapper with a baseball bat during a concert. He's sentenced to 10 days in jail.
July 23th 1993: John Singleton's Poetic Justice, starring Tupac and Janet Jackson, is released. Before filming began, Jackson demanded Shakur take an HIV test before she would do any kissing scenes.
October 31st 1993: Tupac is arrested for allegedly shooting two off-duty Atlanta police officers who he says were harassing a black motorist. Charges are eventually dropped.
November 18th 1993: A 19 year old woman, whom Tupac picked up 4 days earlier in a New York nightclub, is allegedly sodomized and sexually abused by the rapper and 3 of his friends.
December 1993: John Singleton is forced by Columbia Pictures to drop the rapper from the cast of his upcoming film, Higher Learning.
March 10th 1994: Tupac is sentenced to fifteen days in a Los Angeles jail for punching out director Allen Hughes. (Hughes and his brother, Albert, had dropped Tupac from Menace II Society.)
March 23th 1994: Tupac stars as Birdie, a troubled drug dealer, in Above the Rim. The soundtrack album, featuring the song "Pour out a little Liquor," recorded by Tupac's group, Thug Life, sells 2 million copies.
September 7th 1994: Two Milwaukee teens murder a police officer and cite Tupac's "Souljah's Story" as their inspiration.
November 30th 1994: While on trial for sex and weapons charges, Tupac is shot five times and robbed of $40,000 worth of jewellery in the lobby of a Times Square recording studio. Tupac checks himself out of the hospital less than three hours after surgery. The case remains unsolved.
December 1st 1994: Tupac is acquitted of sodomy and weapons charges but is found guilty of sexual abuse.
February 14th 1995: Tupac is sentenced to up to four and a half years in a maximum security prison, convicted of touching her bum. He immediately begins serving his time in New York's Rikers Island penitentiary.
April 1st 1995: While he's incarcerated, Tupac's third album, Me Against the World, debuts at no. 1 on Billboard's pop chart. Fuelled by the single "Dear Mama," the album goes double platinum in 7 months.

April 1995: In a vibe interview from jail, Tupac renounces "Thug Life" persona and commits himself to positive works. He also implicates Biggie Smalls, Puffy Combs, Andre Harrell, and his close friend Stretch, and others in the recording studio ambush.
August 1995: Biggie, Puffy and Harrell tell Vibe, they had no connection to Tupac's shooting.
October 1995: Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight posts $1.4 million bond to release Tupac, who immediately flies to LA, signs with Death Row and begins recording All Eyez on Me.
November 30th 1995: Exactly on year after Tupac's shooting, Randy "Stretch" Walker is murdered execution-style in Queens.
February 1996: In Vibe Tupac suggests he's been sleeping with Biggie's wife, Faith Evans. She denies the stories.
February 13th 1996: Tupac's Death Row Debut, All Eyez on Me, rap's first double CD, is released.
March 29th 1996: Words are exchanged and a gun is pulled when Death Row and Bad Boy employees face off after the Soul Train awards in Los Angeles.
April 25th 1996: All Eyez on Me goes quintuple platinum.
May 1996: Tupac and Snoop Dogg release "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted." In the video, caricatures of Biggie and Puffy and punished for setting up Tupac.
June 4th 1996: Death Row releases Tupac's "Hit 'Em Up," a brutal diatribe against Biggie, Bad Boy, Mobb Deep, and others.
September 4th 1996: Tupac returns to New York for the MTV music awards and gets into a scuffle.
September 7th 1996: After leaving the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight in Las Vegas in Suge Knight's car, Shakur is shot four times in the chest by an assailant in a white Cadillac. Knight, who has connections with the Bloods, escapes with a minor injury. Shakur is rushed to University Medical Centre, where he undergoes surgery, including the removal of his right lung.
September 11th 1996: A Compton man who police say is associated with the LA Crips is shot to death while sitting in his car, the first in a series of gang related murders. Police begin investigating possible connections to Tupac's shooting.
September 13th 1996: After six days in critical condition, Tupac Shakur is pronounced dead at 4:03pm. His body is later cremated. He was only 25.