Mass Effect 3 - Know Your Mass Effect History @ UGO

With Mass Effect 3's release fast approaching, UGO has made a historical timeline so we can cacth up on the events happening in the Mass Effect universe so far. As always, a quote, here on the pre-council era:

Important Facts:
Derelict Reaper
•37,000,000 BCE: 37 million years before the founding of the Citadel Council, an unknown race fired off a giant mass accelerator round of devastating power. This round ripped through a Reaper, a highly advanced organic, sentient starship.
Protheans Vanish
•48,000 BCE: The Protheans' reach spans countless galaxies and planets and their empire grows to enormous proportions before they mysteriously vanish. The Mass Relays and the Citadel is believed to be leftover Prothean technology.
Krogan Holocaust
•1900 BCE: The Krogans, native to Tuchanka, discover nuclear power. Unfortunately, this spirals out of control and WMDs go off, causing global devastation. As a result, the Krogans fall into a primitive, savage, clan-based society.
Mu Relay Lost
•1800 BCE: A supernova explodes, propelling the Mu Relay, the only Mass Relay connected to the Pangaea Expanse. The relay is lost in the abyss of space and the Pangea Expanse is cut off.
Citadel Discovered
•580 BCE: While experimenting with what was thought to be Prothean technology, the Asari start exploring the various Mass Relays and where they lead. Eventually, they stumble upon the Citadel and set up camp. 60 years later, the Salarians find the Citadel and open diplomatic relations with the Asari.

More information.

The source link goes to the GameBanshee news page and this appears not to be on the first page of their list of stories/links anymore.

The timeline is pretty condensed, but here's the link to the article on UGO if anyone was interested:
http://www.ugo.com/games/mass-effect-history

If I know Bioware, you can pick any of their games in terms of lore and change the names around

Basically, ME1 contains almost all interesting information on ME history. Mass Effect 2 is simply status quo, but with different companions.