Using background culled from the three movies and "Animatrix" shorts, The Associated Press compiled an estimated timeline of the war between men and machines:
2010-60 Humans create humanoid drone robots with Artificial Intelligence to fill jobs as construction laborers and servants.
2069 The hovercraft transport ship Nebuchadnezzar, later to be captained by Morpheus, is constructed in the United States.
2075 AI programs evolve and some robots began to resent their human overlords.
2077 In the first case of a machine rising up against its owners, the butler robot B166ER slaughters two humans, leading to B166ER's eradication and a backlash against robots and artificial intelligence.
2080-85 Rioting and violence against machines prompts robots to flee major cities and establish their own community known as Zero One in a remote part of the Middle East.
2085-2095 Zero One thrives, creating superior vehicles, computers and weaponry and decimating the economies of many human nations, which now lack the machine-based labor that made them strong.
2096 United Nations officials refuse to accept the robot civilization of Zero One as a sovereign nation. A trade blockade of robot goods leads to war.
2097 Zero One survives a nuclear attack its inhabitants are impervious to the heat and radiation and casualties are quickly replaced. Counterstrikes launched against humans.
2098 As cities fall beneath the might of mechanized forces, desperate military leaders attempt to block the main source of energy for the robot city: the sun. The plan destroys the atmosphere and fills the sky with choking black smoke but does not stop the machines.
2099 Machine forces overtake human armies and capture survivors and civilians for experimentation, determining that human bio-electricity can be harnessed to replace the sun's energy.
2100 Machines create the Matrix, a dream-like world set in 1999, to extend the lives of the comatose human batteries.
2105 The first human known as The One, locked in bondage inside the Matrix, learns he can manipulate the world through thought and manages to break free. Seeks sanctuary in the underground human stronghold of Zion.
2105-2150 Zion resistance movement created, although The One later dies under unexplained circumstances.
2161 Morpheus born in a Matrix womb; freed in childhood.
2167 Trinity born in a Matrix womb; freed in early childhood.
2175 The Oracle prophesizes that Morpheus will discover the second coming of The One.
2199 Trinity and Morpheus discover Neo, a hacker in the Matrix. They free him and do battle with Agent Smith, a program designed to rid the Matrix of humans who detect its flaws.
2201 The Osiris, another human rebellion ship, discovers machines drilling through the Earth above Zion. Crew members send a message through the Matrix to their compatriots shortly before being destroyed.
2201 Now living in Zion and working with the rebellion against the machines, Neo encounters The Architect, the artificial intelligence program that created the Matrix.
2201 The Architect reveals that the Matrix places rebellious humans in Zion, which it then targets for destruction, thus eradicating "bugs" in its system. He states that Zion has been destroyed five previous times suggesting the Matrix may be much older than he thinks.
