Timeline/Early years

The Grateful Dead is known for having a gigantic, convuluted history. This article will attempt to list every show, event, along with album releases, pictures, birthdays, deaths, single releases, including after 1995 and into the present year. This is mostly derived from the book The Illustrated Trip (2015 edition) and public online information from sites like the Internet Archive, The Compleat History of the Grateful Dead, Deaddisc, Deadbase XI, and many more. This article chronicles 1940 to 1964.

March 15, 1940
Phil Lesh ("Philip Chapman Lesh") is born in Berkeley, California to parents Frank and Barbara Lesh. Phil's parents, born in Ohio and Kansas respectively, eloped to California after they married.

June 23, 1941
Robert Hunter (born as Robert Burns) is born in Luis Obispo, California. His mother and birth father are unknown. His parents, divorced when he was very little, get remarried shortly afterwards. Robert's mother takes the name "Hunter", after Robert's new stepdad Norman Hunter.

August 1, 1942
Jerry Garcia (Jerome John Garcia) is born in San Francisco, California. His parents, Jose and Ruth Marie Garcia, name him after Broadway composer Jerome Kern. Jose, a jazz bandleader, and Ruth, an amateur jazz musician, both made Jerry grow up in a musical household.