Timeline/Pre-Invasion


 * 1896: Fyodor Malikov is born.


 * 1898: Cuba's Independence is granted by a reluctant Spain.
 * US newspaper reports of atrocities performed against revolutionaries fighting to free Cuba from Spanish rule. Relations between Spain and America exacerbated when the USS Maine is sunk in Havana Harbor, as American sentiment shifts strongly towards intervention.


 * Reluctant to get involve, but eager to save face, President William McKinley sends a secret emissary to deliver an ultimatum to Spain: grant Cuba's independence or face US military action in all Spanish territories. Fearing for the security of its last colony in Puerto Rico and its status as an empire, Spain reluctantly accepted the terms, and thus war between Spain and America was avoided. (It is from this date that diverge from the real world's time-line.)




 * September, 1908: The Tunguska Episode flattens 2,150 square kilometer of forest.
 * An unknown object, possibly a meteor, lands in Tunguska, Siberia. Its impact causes an explosion devastating the surrounding area for hundreds of miles, and the resulting changes to atmospheric pressure register on barographs as far away as Iceland. This becomes known as the Tunguska Event. It is believed that the Chimera originated from this event.


 * August, 1914: The Great War - British and French forces begin invasion.
 * The Great War begins when British and French forces invade the German protectorate of Togoland in West Africa.




 * March, 1917: Woodrow Wilson - Requests declaration of war against Germany.
 * Due to the German Navy's unrestricted submarine warfare, President Woodrow Wilson requests declaration of war against Germany but Congress, led by strong isolationist Henry Cabot Lodge, refuses making declaration of war impossible without an overt threat to the US.


 * October, 1917: Socialist Bolshevik party is broken in Russia.
 * Russian Revolution: Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik followers were brutally crushed by Tsar Mikhail. The Socialist Bolshevik party is broken and its leader, Lenin, is sent to a labor camp in eastern Siberia.


 * 1918: Spanish Influenza pandemic took place. Subsequently, around 20 to 100 million people worldwide were killed as a result of the pandemic, Nathan Hale's parents among them.


 * October, 1918: Germany Requests a Ceasefire with Britain and other Entente Powers.
 * Germany requests a ceasefire and the Great War ends. Germany abandons its military rule and becomes a parliamentary democracy in order to meet peace talk conditions.


 * January 19th, 1919: Frank Anthony Gennaro is born.


 * June, 1919: Treaty of Versailles
 * The Treaty of Versailles is signed and the Great War officially ends


 * July, 1919: European Trade Organization is created, ushering in a new economic boost.
 * A key point of the Treaty of Versailles calls for the formation of the ETO (European Trade Organization). The organization is formed to encourage all European nations to work together to establish peace.


 * December 10th, 1919: Joseph Evan Capelli is born.


 * August, 1920: Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik leads a scientific expedition into the Tunguska incident.


 * November, 1920: Leonid Kulik and his expedition mysteriously disappeared after the Russian Academy of Sciences had lost contact with Kulik's expedition. Despite an extensive search party for the missing expedition, it was called off due to a harsh and early starting winter. Kulik's expedition is presume lost to the early winter. Only Kulik's items were found which consists a page from Kulik's journal and a camera.


 * August, 1921: French Agents Murdered after being captured in Russia.
 * 12 French agents in Russia are swiftly executed without trial for allegedly encouraging insurrection.


 * September, 1921: Russia Closes Borders closing communications with the outside world.
 * Russia seals its borders and cut off communications from the world for unknown reasons. But blames anti-imperialist propaganda from Europe and infiltration. The "Red Curtain" is formed along the Russian/European border which will one day be longer than the Great Wall of China.


 * November 30th, 1922: Nathan Hale is born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.


 * January 9th, 1923: Benjamin Phillip Warner is born.


 * June, 1923: Record Number Of Fish Caught due to shifts in ocean currents.
 * In the year known as "Nineteen hundred and fish", fishing in the Great Banks of Newfoundland is almost three times as productive as usual. Cheap, high-quality seafood is readily available in markets across America and Canada. Oceanographic studies show erratic shifts in the East Greenland Current contributing to abundant nutrients to the ocean's surface.


 * March 28th, 1925: Kenneth Danby is born


 * May 3rd, 1925: Aaron Lloyd Hawthorne is born.


 * August, 1926: The Volga River Episode - Did the slick make it all the way out to the sea?
 * A slick flowing from the Volga River in Russia kills all marine life in the Sea of Azov as well as several villagers. Ukraine scientists from the University of Sevastopol investigated the incident and detects quantities of radon 1,000 times than normal.


 * 1927: The Chimera have begun their attack on Russia. Dr. Fyodor Malikov creates an experimental vaccine which shows promise in creating a resistance to the Chimeran virus. Desperate to stem the Chimeran tide the Russian government orders all surviving soldiers to be vaccinated.


 * January, 1927: First Transatlantic Phone Call is made between New York and London by AT&T.
 * First commercial transatlantic phone call is made between New York City and London by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).


 * 1928: Most of the Russian soldiers who have received Malikov’s vaccine demonstrate a strong resistance to the Chimeran virus and are effective in fighting the Chimera. Yet some soldiers exhibit erratic and violent behavior. Some disappear from their posts.


 * 1928: Tesla's VTOL Concept for an aerial transportation system is patented.
 * Inventor Nikola Tesla receives a patent for an aerial transportation system. It is the first instance of a Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft.


 * January 9th, 1928: Jordan Adam Shepherd is born.


 * June, 1928: Amelia Earhart
 * Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.


 * November 30th, 1928: Glenn Albert Khaner is born.


 * October, 1929: Economic Uncertainty - Fears that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act will pass sends the Dow Jones Average down 5% in one hour.
 * President Herbert Hoover gives a radio address promising to veto the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act to spare global trade from crippling taxation. Hoover's act prevents a economic depression in America. By the end of the next trading day (Green Tuesday), the Dow Jones has recovered its losses.


 * February 2nd, 1930: Channing Brown is born.


 * August, 1930: Environmental Instability causes previously unseen weather patterns.
 * Strange weather patterns from Russia cause storms and heavy rains to fall across the American Great Plains.


 * September, 1930: Almost 90% of the vaccinated Russian soldiers have gone AWOL. These soldiers have banded together into small groups and roam the Russian countryside preying on other humans, they are referred to as Cloven. They become as much of a threat as the Chimera. Dr. Malikov works desperately to improve his vaccine but his efforts are hindered as he has to move from place to place to avoid the encroaching conflict.


 * September, 1930: The Weimar Republic gains support as a result of Germany's ETO status.
 * In Germany, recovery from the Great War to a full member of the ETO solidifies support for the Weimar Republic government. They easily win reappointment in the Reichstag general elections. The Nationalist Socialists' party's extreme agenda is ridiculed and marginalized.


 * 1931: A Propagation Of Ethno-Slander is published at the Conservatory of Folk Studies in Bologna, Italy in which the article criticized noted ethnographer Innokentiy Suslov for allegedly concocting on stories and legends from the ethnic tribes in the Tunguska region, describing legends of warfare on an epic scale. Some of these stories date back a mere twenty-three years to the Tunguska Event.


 * January 18th, 1931: Keith Todd Oster is born.


 * 1933: Local farmer Josiah Bennivur discovered an unusual fossil of a skull and donated it to the Helena, Montana Museum of Natural History.


 * May 27th, 1934: Unknown Material found in Nevada
 * Fourteen miners at Big Scrape copper mine in Nevada, USA unearthed a large portion of a buried metallic structure. The US government sends federal agents to investigate and interview the miners. Citing safety reasons the US government seizes control of the mine and sets up a twelve mile military perimeter around the area. Most of the miners denied their findings, claiming that it was merely a vein of iron ore.


 * May 27th, 1934: The Department of War charters the Special Research Projects Administration (SRPA). Upon its inception, the SRPA has no mission statement or declared goals.


 * 1935: VTOL Program Accelerated - The WPA demands nimble aircraft with high payloads.
 * US President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Work Progress Administration (WPA) to bolster the economy. Over the next ten years, the WPA builds 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000 bridges, and 125,000 buildings. The WPA demand for a nimble aircraft with high payloads leads to the pursuit of Tesla's VTOL concept. The result is the UH-17 Atlas VTOL. The UH-17 proves exceedingly capable, but acquires a reputation as difficult to fly as several flip during flight. The crashes are blamed on poorly balanced loads.


 * August, 1936: The 1936 Olympic Games - Germany are the most elaborate Olympic Games in modern history following the Great War.
 * Germany hosts the Olympic Games, bringing with it the largest number of participating countries ever. Russia noticeably does not take part - perceived by the ETO as a "despicable" snub. Track and Field star Jesse Owens becomes the first American to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.


 * April, 1937: Alaska - The Northern Front - Construction begins in Anchorage, Alaska on a classified location.
 * Several tracts of land many hundreds of square miles wide in Alaska is made for the construction of Fort Anchorage, and is under classified by the U.S. Government.


 * May, 1937: VTOL Problems Resolved and the UH-17 finally becomes reliable and safe.
 * Problems with the UH-17 VTOL are resolved with instrument system upgrades that prevent the plane from descending into its own rotor wash. Flight safety records improve immediately.


 * July, 1937: Amelia Earhart mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight.


 * February, 1938: Sweden's Deadliest Winter
 * 138 people freeze to death and many animals dies as Sweden suffers its coldest winter on record.


 * June, 1938: Russian Ghost Towns - German Federal Intelligence Service operatives discover dozens of ghost towns in Russia across the Belarus border.
 * Ghost towns appear in Russia across the Belarus border with no signs of violence. Only discoveries are of houses being boarded up and covered in folkloric demonic wards. European intelligence officials suspects biological or chemical weapons are involved.


 * October, 1938: War of the Worlds - A radio broadcast about alien invasion terrifies a nation.
 * Orson Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast touches widespread panic, and provoking a harsh response from the White House. The public upbraiding proves devastating and Orson Welles' career is ruined. [[Image:War_of_the_worlds.jpg|thumb|H.G. Well's The War of the Worlds]]


 * October, 1938: Domestic Security Agency - Fear widen on public's possible reaction.
 * Following Welles' broadcast, the head of the Domestic Security Agency (DSA), Raymond Tharp, briefs the US government on the potential repercussions of the public's panic reactions of an actual invasion.


 * December, 1938: Roosevelt VS Taft in a political battle over military spending.
 * The U.S. Navy is spending more money in securing shipping lanes across the North Atlantic. This is in response to increased trade between the United States and the UED (a new security component of the ETO). However this also lead to President Roosevelt being challenged by Senator Robert Taft, who is a staunch isolationist. He views the naval build-up as the first step to towards international political and military involvements. But being as a terrible public speaker, he is unable to inspire anyone for his support against Roosevelt; however, he manages to inspire a young Junior Senator from Montana by the name of Noah Grace.


 * May, 1939: Military Defense Commission is formed to create advanced weaponry.
 * The UED creates the MDC (Military Defense Commission) in Luxembourg to focus on weapons research and development.


 * November 17th, 1939: 125 Russian refugees die in Finland after inexplicably seeking asylum. There was no response coming from St. Petersburg in regarding to the deaths.


 * August, 1940: Roosevelt Falls From Grace - Noah Grace attacks Roosevelt's strategies.
 * Noah Grace calls President Roosevelt an Imperialist and a Warmonger, and defeats him in the 1940 elections by the narrowest margin of any Presidential election in US history with Harvey McCullen as running mate.


 * January, 1941: Subterranean Army Complex is "ahead of schedule", while the military mum on additional base details.
 * A Subterranean Army complex is being built across the United Kingdom. As the public speculate after the Swifton Blade prints photograph showing a military base in London is entirely subterranean with concrete walls several yards thick, the press is put into a blackout.


 * December, 1941: Fearing for his life, Dr. Malikov flees to England with his research.


 * February, 1942: Close Encounters
 * Amateur plane spotters in Latvia reported strange flying objects in the sky.


 * June, 1944: Nuclear Weapon Tested - Wilderness flattened for miles in Alaska.
 * First nuclear weapon tested in Alaska. President Grace gives a speech confirming the development of the nuclear bomb and refers to the tests as a clear message of national pride, stating "Let it be known that American isolationism is not cowardice, but restraint."


 * April 15th, 1945: Nathan Hale enlist in the U.S. Army and begins basic training at Camp Wolters, Texas.


 * December 11th, 1946: Nathan Hale is cited for racing in tanks and going over the speed limit.