User:Nareek/Chronology

Chronology of the Known World

This is a timeline of the collective consciousness: a chronological ordering of everything, fictional and nonfictional, that belongs to our shared culture. It includes things that are part of general knowledge; not necessarily things that "everyone knows," but things one might know without specialized knowledge. It operates on the Liberty Valance principle: When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Elder Days
13.7 BYA Big Bang

6.2 BYA A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

4.57 BYA Birth of Sun

4.57 BYA Birth of Earth

4.53 BYA Birth of Moon

3.5 BYA Origin of Life

Arrival of Tsathoggua to Earth

1 BYA Old Ones arrive at Mountains of Madness

680 MYA birth of Appalachians

670 MYA Pre-Cambrian
First multicellular life

590 Cambrian
570 Trilobites

505 Ordovician
First jawless fish

438 MYA Silurian
First true fish

425 First land plants

408 Devonian
400 Arrival on Earth of Great Race of Yith

First amphibians

First forests

360 MYA Carboniferous
Coal Swamps flourish

Giant amphibians

Giant insects

350 MYA Arrival of Cthulhu

300 MYA Sinking of R'lyeh

286 MYA Permian
280 MYA Dimetrodon

275 MYA Serpent People of Valusia

Civilization on Mars

Destruction of Fifth Planet

Formation of Pangaea

251 Permian extinction event

251 MYA Triassic
250 Rebellion of Shoggoths

213 MYA Jurassic
200 MYA Breakup of Pangaea into Gondwanaland and Laurasia

Sauropods

Stegosaurs

Allosaurs

Civilized Sleestaks

160 Fungi from Yuggoth come to Earth

144 MYA Cretaceous
Breakup of Gondwanaland

96 MYA Australia breaks off.

Ceratopsians

Ankylosaurs

Tyrannosaurs

Raptors

Savage Sleestaks

Dinosaur-biting insects preserved in amber.

Time traveller steps on a butterfly.

Meteor kills dinosaurs 65 Million YA

Age of Mammals
Some dinosaurs survive in The Land That Time Forgot, The Lost World, Skull Island, Pellucidar etc.

60 MYA Eohippus

50 MYA India collides with Asia; birth of Himalayas

35 MYA Ground sloth

15 MYA Antarctica covered by ice

6 MYA The missing link between humans and apes

4 MYA A black monolith appears to early hominids and imparts skills, including weapon use.

4 MYA Mastodon

3.2 MYA Lucy

Ice Age
3 MYA Beginning of Ice Age

3 MYA Saber-tooth tiger

2.5 MYA Panama connects the Americas.

STONE AGE
2.4 MYA Homo habilis

2MYA First stone tools

1.8 MYA Pleistocene
1.8 MYA Home erectus

Mammoth

Woolly rhinoceros

Cave bear

Dire wolf

Hyperborean Age
750,200 BCE Eibon, greatest wizard of Hyperborea, lived just before the empire was covered by glaciers

500,000 BCE: Discovery of fire

393,000 BC: destruction of Mu

350,000 First Neanderthals

200,000 BCE First Homo sapiens

161,844 BCE: destruction of Lemuria

100,000 BCE: Dire wolf

100,000 BCE: Construction of Ringworld

70,000 BC Beginning of last Ice Age

33,000 BC The Cro-Magnon Ayla is adopted by the Neanderthal Clan of the Cave Bear.

First Age
Gil-Galad

Elrond

Destruction of Atlantis (Numenor)

Durin

Second Age

Third Age
Gandalf

Bilbo

Frodo

Sam

28,000 Last surviving Neanderthal fossils.

28,000 Cave paintings at Lascaux

20,000 BCE King Kull of Atlantis

17,000 BCE Cave painting at Lascaux

10,000 BCE Conan the Barbarian

Red Sonja

Antedeluvian
Golden Age?

Silver Age? 1684-1460

9,500 BC Final destruction of Atlantis

8,000 BC End of last Ice Age

8000 BCE Doom comes to Sarnath

7300 Kennewick Man

5199 Creation of Adam and Eve (Septuagint) (5315?)

Adam (5199-4269)

Lilith

Eve

Cain Kills Abel

5069 Birth of Seth (d. 4287)

4577 Birth of Enoch (d. 4212)

4512 Birth of Methuselah (d. 3543)

4300 Birth of Rama

4143 Birth of Noah (d. 3243)

4000 Foundation of Ur

3643 Birth of Shem (d. 2941)

3543 Noah's Flood (1656 AC)

Bronze Age
Tower of Babel built by Nimrod

3200 The Dagda builds Newgrange in Ireland

3114 Beginning of Mayan calendar

3102 Beginning of Kali Yuga

3100 Mahabharata war

3100 Construction of Stonehenge begins

3100 First Egyptian Dynasty

3000 Mohenjo-daro

3000 Invention of the wheel

Sumeria

2698-2599 Reign of Yellow Emperor, first emperor of China

2613 Reign of Nephren-Ka in Egypt

2600 Gilgamesh

2560 Great Pyramid built by Cheops (reigned 2589-2566)

2500 Book of the Dead written

2200 Queen Nitocris reigns in Egypt

1956 Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

1955-1775 Isaac

1850 Abraham (2055-1880) arrives in Canaan

1896 Tuatha de Danaan arrive in Ireland

1895-1748 Jacob

1804-1694 Joseph

1800 Hittite Empire

1770 Birth of Uranus

1750 Birth of Kronos

1715

1710 Castration of Uranus by Kronos

1701 Birth of Zeus

1700 Hammurabi

1699 Tuatha de Danaan defeated by Milesians

1682 Zeus overthrows Kronos

1674 Births of Hephaestus, Ares, Eris, Hebe.

1674-67 Births of Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Athene by different mothers.

1654 Creation of Pandora

1630-1511 Moses

1628 Revolt of the Titans; Attack of Typhon

1607 Founding of Argos

1600 Eruption of Thera

1595 Hittites sack Babylon

1550 Exodus

1510 Joshua destroys the walls of Jericho

1460 Deucalion's Flood

1437 Founding of Thebes

1438 Minos

1420 Abduction of Persephone

1420 Birth of Dionysus

1410 First Olympic Games

1379-1336 Amenhotep

Nefertiti

Anekhaton

1366- Perseus

1333 King Tutankhamen reigns in Egypt (until 1323)

1302-1203 Rameses the Great (Ozymandias)

1290 The priest Imhotep is cursed to become a living mummy.

1000-100 B.C.

1286-1226 Herakles

1271- Theseus

Oedipus kills his father, marries his mother.

Orpheus

Bellerophon kills the Chimaera.

1250 Exodus (JB)

1251 Calydonian Boar Hunt

1246 Voyage of the Argonauts

1233-1173+ Helen

1210 Joshua invades Canaan

1193-1183 Trojan War

1173 Homecoming of Odysseus

1071 Samson and Delilah

Daniel in the lion's den

Babylonian captivity

Iron Age
1200 Iron Age

1125 Deborah

1105 Brutus becomes king of Britain.

1040 Samuel

1030-1010 Reign of Saul

1010-970 Reign of David

1000 David captures Jerusalem

970-931 Reign of Solomon

966 Building of Solomon's Temple by Hiram

Queen of Sheba

King Solomon's Mines

874-853 Reign of Ahab, husband of Jezebel

861 King Leir reins over Britain from Caerleir (Leicester).

858 Elijah

850 Jezebel

841-814 Jehu, known for his driving

860-835 Reign of Jehosaphat in Judah

814 Foundation of Carthage

801 Queen Cordelia succeeds her father Leir as monarch of Britain.

776 First Olympic Games

740 Isaiah's Prophesies

753 Romulus (771-717) kills his twin Remus during the founding of Rome

Rape of the Sabine Women

721-705 Reign of Sargon

668-621 Reign of Ashurbanipal

628 Siddhartha (663-583) achieves enlightenment and becomes the Buddha.

637 Jeremiah's prophecies

620-560 Aesop

604-562 Nebuchadnezzar

604-531 Lao Tsu

598-538 Babylonian Captivity

588 Zarathustra spake in Bactria.

569-473 Pythagoras

560 Croesus (595-546) becomes king of Lydia

555-549 Cyrus becomes king of Persians and Medes

551-479 Confucius

Classical Era
509 Founding of Roman Republic

500-100 B.C.

498 Aeschylus (525-456) begins writing plays

490 The Persian Empire under Darius the Great defeated by Athens at the Battle of Marathon.

450 Socrates (470-399) meets the paradoxical Zeno (490?-430?)

468 Sophocles (497-406) first wins the Dionysian drama festival.

468-465 Xerxes emperor of Persia

468 Cincinnatus throws down his plow to become dictator and save Rome.

455 Euripides (480-406) first enters the Dionysian drama festival.

Pericles

432 Parthenon completed

431 Sparta attacks Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars.

412-323 Diogenes

399 Socrates dies by hemlock.

377 Death of Hippocrates

360 Plato (427-347) writes The Republic.

356 Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders, destroyed by arson.

338 Philip of Macedon (382-336) conquers Athens and Thebes.

336 Zeus fathers Alexander the Great on Philip's wife Olympias.

343 Aristotle (384-322) becomes the tutor of Alexander.

330 Alexander (356-323) conquers the Persian Empire

350 The Mausoleum built for King Mausollos.

282 Colossus of Rhodes completed.

265 Archimedes[ (287-212) shouts "Eureka!" after discovering the principle of bouyancy.

235 Library of Alexandria founded

218 Hannibal (247-182) crosses the Alps with elephants

202 Hannibal defeated by Rome.

146 Destruction of Carthage and Corinth

73 Spartacus' revolt

Imperial Era
58 Julius Caesar (100-44) begins conquest of Gaul.

51 Cleopatra (69-30) becomes Queen of Egypt

49 Caesar crosses the Rubicon

48 Cleopatra becomes the lover of Julius Caesar.

44 Julius Caesar assassinated by a conspiracy led by Brutus and Cassius.

42 Cleopatra becomes the lover of Marc Anthony.

37 Herod the Great king of Judaea.

30 Cleopatra allows an asp to bite her after Marc Anthony defeated by Octavian.

27 BC Octavian becomes Augustus Caesar 63 BC-12 AD

1 A.D. Birth of Jesus, Star of Bethlehem, Angels and Shepherds

2 A.D. Arrival of Magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Flight into Egypt. Massacre of the Innocents.

John the Baptist

Mary

Joseph

12 Jesus left behind in the Temple.

12 Death of Cuchullain

18 Caiaphas high priest in Jerusalem (until 36)

27 Preaching of John the Baptist (d. 29)

33 Water into Wine, Loaves and Fishes, Walking on Water, Raising Lazarus, Sermon on the Mount, Judas betrays, Pilate washes hands, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension

Ahasueras the Wandering Jew begins wandering.

A pregnant Mary Magdalene flees to France

Barrabas is spared

Peter denies Christ, goes to Rome to found Vatican.

33 Ben-Hur wins the big race.

37 Conversion of Paul on road to Damascus

40 The Apostle Matthew writes a gospel

43 Britain conquered by Emperor Claudius. Andrew

Thomas

44 James the Greater martyred

37-41 Reign of Caligula

41-54 Reign of Claudius

43 Peter confronts sorcerer Simon Magus in Samaria

48 Destruction of Library of Alexandria

54 Nero (d. 69) becomes emperor.

60 Boadicea leads revolt against Romans.

62 St. Bartholemew crucified in India.

63 St. Luke writes a gospel, Acts

63 Joseph of Arimathea comes to Glastonbury, bringing with him the Holy Grail.

64 Nero fiddles while Rome burns; throws Christians to lions.

64 Peter martyred at Rome

65 Mark writes his gospel, based on Peter's account

67 Martyrdom of Paul

68 James the Lesser martyred

69 St. Andrew crucified in Greece.

70 Destruction of Jerusalem, including Herod's Temple

72 St. Thomas martyred in India.

73 Masada

79 Vesuvius erupts, destroying Pompeii and killing the naturalist Pliny the Elder (b. 23).

79 St. Jude killed by a mob in Persia along with St. Simon.

80 Colosseum opened in Rome.

90 St. Philip crucified in Asia Minor.

90 St. Matthew dies a natural death in Persia.

90-168 Ptolemy

95 John sees the Apocalypse at Patmos

96 Roman Empire reaches its greatest extent under Trajan.

100 B.C.-500

Three Kingdom Era

117-138 Hadrian builds his wall.

149 Galen becomes an attendant of Asclepius.

161 Marcus Aurelias (121-180), stoic philosopher, becomes emperor.

206 Bran Mak Morn is leader of the Picts.

250 Seven Sleepers bed down in Ephesus

280 Martyrdom of Saint Valentine, who cured the daughter of his jailer and left a note to her "from your Valentine."

284 Death of Fionn mac Cumhaill

303 Martyrdom of Saint George (b. 275); the dragon must have been slain earlier

306 Old King Coel rules Britain from Colchester.

313 Constantine establishes Christianity as the Imperial religion.

325 Nicean Council

330 Constantine moves capital from Rome to Constantinople.

Birth of Merlin

386 Saint Augustine (354-430) is converted.

406 Saint Jerome writes the Vulgate Bible.

"Once Upon a Time..."
Cinderella

Sleeping Beauty

Prince Charmant

Rapunzel

Snow White

Little Red Riding Hood

Miss Muffet

Mother Hubbard

Mary

Peter Piper, Pumpkin-Eater

Tom, Peter's son (thief)

Simple Simon

Georgie Porgie

Jumping Jack

Jill, Jack's sister

410 Visigoths sack Rome.

410 Romans driven out of Britain.

421 Seven Sleepers awaken

432 Saint Patrick (390-461) returns to Ireland, expels snakes.

440 Sinking of Ys.

445 Vortigern takes power in Britain.

449 Saxon invasion of Britain begins.

452 Atilla the Hun (405–453) spares the city of Rome at the request of Pope Leo (400-461).

455 Vandals sack Rome.

455 Chichen Itza founded.

460 Ambrosius Aurelianus leader of Britain.

468 Saint Brigid (451-525) converts to Christianity

475 Coming to the aid of King Hrothgar of Denmark, Beowulf kills the monster Grendel and his mother.

476 Western Roman Empire falls to the Goths.

497 Shaolin Monastery founded

501 Uther Pendragon becomes king of Britain.

518 The Battle of Badon, according to Annales Cambrai

521 Arthur pulls Sword from Stone, becomes King of Britain

Arthur receives Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake.

Merlin trapped in a hill by Nimue.

Guenivere and Lancelot betray Arthur

511 Death of Arthur (542?)

525 Beowulf slays the dragon.

527 Bodhidharma comes to China, teaches kung fu to the Shaolin Monastery.

530 Voyage of St. Brendan (484-574)

539 Death of Arthur, according to Annales Cambrai

555 Taliesin (534–599) becomes royal bard in Britain.

563 Saint Columba (521-597) founds the monestary at Iona, confronts the Loch Ness Monster, converts the Picts.

590 Gregory the Great (540-604) becomes Pope; fond of chanting, not so fond of calendar reform.

610 Mohammed (570-632) begins receiving revelations from the Archangel Gabriel.

622 Flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina.

661 Death of Ali (b. 599)

691 Dome of the Rock built on site of Second Temple.

711 Moors begin conquest of Iberia.

730 Necronomicon written by Abdul Alhazred (d. 738).

731 The Venerable Bede (672-735) writes his History.

732 Battle of Tours

Ludvig Prinn writes De Vermis Mysteriis Von Junzt writes Unspeakable Cults Comte d'Erlette writes Cultes des Goules

763-809 Harun Al-Rashid

Jafar

Shahrazad

Aladdin

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves

Sinbad makes his voyages.

778 Roland killed at the Battle of Roncesvalles

782 Alcuin becomes tutor to Charlemagne's court.

793 Raid on Lindisfarne begins the Viking era.

800 Crowning of Charlemagne (742-814) as Holy Roman Emperor.

849-899 Alfred the Great

c. 850 Events of Hamlet

850 Settlement of Iceland

854 Pope Joan, disguised as a man, serves as pontiff for two years

859 House of Flying Daggers emerges to fight the Tang Dynasty

Medieval Era
900-1300

904 Gunpowder first used in warfare in China

907 Birth of Good King Wenceslas

923 Quetzalcoatl begins reign.

982 Eric the Red (950-1003) discovers Greenland

993 Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry founded.

1000 Leif Erikson's Voyage to Vinland

1017 Canute the Great (995-1035) becomes King of England, commands waves to stop.

1040 Macbeth (1005-1057) becomes king of Scotland.

1057 Lady Godiva (1040-1080) rides naked through the town of Coventry to convince her husband to repeal onerous taxation. No one watches except Peeping Tom.

1066 Norman Conquest

1094 El Cid (1044-1099) conquers Valencia.

1095 First Crusade

1099 Founding of Priory of Zion.

1100 Founding of Knights of Malta

1118 Founding of Knights Templar

1119 Peter Abelard (1079-1142) becomes the teacher of Heloise (1101-1162).

1165 Prester John writes to the Pope

1178 Pisa's Tower begins to lean.

1187 Saladin (1137-1193) recaptures Jerusalem.

1190 Richard the Lionhearted (1157-1199) embarks on the 3rd Crusade, leaving Prince John as regent.

1190 Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (b. 1122) is said to have died while engaged in the 3rd Crusade, though he reportedly sleeps beneath the Kyffhäuser mountain in Thuringia.

1192 Richard the Lionhearted held captive; released 1194. During the period Robin Hood (1160-1247) struggles against Prince John. Events of Ivanhoe.

1206 Genghis Khan (1162-1227) unites the Mongol tribes.

1209 Albigensian Crusade

1209 Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) founds the Franciscan brotherhood.

1212 Children's Crusade

1215 Genghis Khan conquers Peking.

1215 Signing of Magna Carta by King John

1228 Wandering Jew said to frequent Armenia

1244 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) begins studying with Albertus Magnus (c. 1200-1280), philosopher and alchemist.

1260 Kublai Khan (1215-1294) builds Xanadu

1261 Tannhauser emerges from the Venusburg

1254-1324

1266 Marco Polo travels the Silk Road to Cathay to meet Kublai Khan.

1284 Pied Piper rids the town of Hameln of rats and children.

1291 End of Crusades

1297 William Wallace (1270-1305) routs English forces at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

Renaissance
1300-1600

1307 William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head, inspires the battle for Swiss independence.

1307 Suppression of the Knights Templar

1314 Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) wins Scottish independence at the Battle of Bannockburn.

1314 Execution of Jacques de Molay, last head of the Templars.

1314 Dante publishes The Divine Comedy

1317 William of Occam proposes his razor.

1327 Petrarch (1304-1374) falls in love with Laura, goes on to launch the Renaissance.

1337 Beginning of Hundred Years' War

1347 The Black Death hits Europe for the first time, killing off a third of its population over the next four years.

1368 Start of Ming Dynasty; construction of Great Wall of China begins

1369 Tamerlane (1336-1405) becomes ruler of Samarkand

Baba Yaga

1403 The rebel Harry Hotspur (b. 1364) killed by Prince Hal (1387-1422); Jack Falstaff (born c. 1350) given credit.

1405 Zheng He begins exploring the Western Ocean with a fleet of 300 ships.

1407 Christian Rosenkreuz (1378 - 1484) founds the Order of the Rosy Cross.

1413 Prince Hal becomes King Henry V, banishes Falstaff.

1415 King Henry V, once Prince Hal, wins the Battle of Agincourt. Falstaff dies shortly before.

1424 Joan of Arc (1412-1431) begins to see visions.

1428 Quasimodo the Hunchback thwarts the schemes of Dom Claude Frollo, archdeacon of Notre Dame.

1431 Joan burnt as stake.

1440 Gilles de Rais, a friend of Joan's, is burned at the stake as a murderer, wizard and lycanthrope.

1449–1492 Lorenzo de Medici

1450 Gutenberg Bible published

1453 End of Hundred Years' War

1453 Fall of Byzantium to the Turks; Istanbul was Constantinople.

1455 Beginning of the War of the Roses

1476 Death of Vlad the Impaler (b. 1431), prince of Wallachia, who returns as the vampire Dracula.

1480-1519 Lucrezia Borgia

1482 Torquemada (1420-1498) becomes Inquisitor General.

1483 Richard Plantagenet places his nephews in the Tower of London and has himself crowned Richard III.

1487 Publication of the Malleus Maleficarum, the witch-hunter's guidebook.

Age of Exploration
1492 Christopher Columbus sails the ocean blue in the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.

1496 Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) tests a flying machine.

1497 Amerigo Vespucci crosses the Atlantic, realizes that a New World has been discovered.

1504 Michelangelo (1475-1564) unveils David.

1507 Leonardo completes the Mona Lisa

1509 Henry VIII (1491-1547) becomes king of England

1512 Michelangelo completes the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

1513 Balboa sees the Pacific

1513 Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) writes The Prince for Cesare Borgia.

1513 Ponce de Leon (b. 1460) searches Florida for the Fountain of Youth.

1516 Sir Thomas More discovers Utopia (off the coast of Brazil?).

1517 Martin Luther (1483-1546) nails his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Saxony.

1519 Ferdinand Magellan begins the circumnavigation of the globe; the survivors of the expedition return to Spain in 1522.

1520 The Aztec Emperor Montezuma is imprisoned by Hernan Cortez.

1521 Ponce de Leon returns to Florida, only to be fatally wounded by a poisoned arrow.

1532 Incan Empire defeated by Pizarro

1535 Execution of Sir Thomas More.

1536 Henry VIII has his second wife Anne Boleyn beheaded.

1539 Knights of Malta send a bejeweled falcon as tribute to King Charles of Spain

1540 Vasquez de Coronado sets off in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola.

1543 Copernicus asserts that the Earth travels around the Sun.

1480-1540 Doctor Johann Faust

1541 Pizarro sets off in search of El Dorado.

1542 Ludwig Prinn writes De Vermis Mysteriis.

1547 Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) becomes the first Tsar.

1540-1596 Sir Francis Drake

1542-1596 Hattori Hanzo

1546 Grace O'Malley, the Pirate Queen (1530-1603), takes to the sea.

1547 Prince Edward changes places with a pauper.

1549 Solomon Kane born in Devonshire, England.

1550 Hiawatha helps found the Iroquois Confederacy. Minnehaha

1550 Nostradamus (1503-1566) begins to publish his prophecies.

1553-58 Rein of Bloody Mary (b. 1516)

1556 Akbar the Great (1543-1605) becomes Mogul of India.

1558 Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) becomes ruler of Britain--on a date chosen by John Dee (1527-1609), who serves as her secret advisor.

1565 Othello, general of Venice, kills his beloved Desdemona at the instigation of Iago.

1567 Mary Queen of Scots put in the Tower of London

1572 French Hugenauts murdered in the St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre

1581 John Dee and Edward Kelly attempt to contact angels.

1584-1656 Myles Standish

1587 Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618) founds a colony at Roanoke; three years later, it is the Lost Colony.

1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Sir Francis Drake (and John Dee's hurricane)

1588 Rabbi Judah Loew (1525-1609) moves to Prague, where he creates a golem.

1592 William Shakespeare (1564-1616) writes Richard III, his first major work.

1593 Christopher Marlowe (b. 1564) killed in a supposed tavern brawl.

Baroque Era
1600-1700

Rosicrucians

Quakers

Anabaptists

1605 Narrative of Don Quixote discovered by Cervantes.

1605 Guy Fawkes (1570-1606) attempts to blow up Parliament.

1607 Jamestown founded in Virginia.

1607 Pocahontas (1595-1617) rescues John Smith (1580-1631).

1609 Henry Hudson (1570-1611) discovers New Amsterdam.

1610 Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1610) imprisoned in her castle for bathing in virgins' blood

1620 Puritans land Mayflower on Plymouth Rock

1623 John Alden (1599-1687) marries Priscilla Mullens (1604-1680).

1628 D'Artagnan (1611-1676) joins up with the Three Musketeers to combat the plots of Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642).

1631 The Great Mogul begins building the Taj Mahal as a memorial to his late wife.

1632 Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) ordered to renounce his heretical views.

1637 The crash of the Tulip mania in Holland.

1639 Kingsport, Mass. founded.

1640 Cyrano de Bergerac (b. 1619-1655) woos Roxane via Christian de Neuvillette.

1641 Captain Falkenberg of the Flying Dutchman vows to round the Cape of Good Hope if it takes until Judgement Day.

1642 Beginning of English Civil War

1643 Innsmouth, Mass founded

1644 Matthew Hopkins becomes Witchfinder General (and is himself burned as a witch in 1647).

1649 King Charles executed

1653 Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) becomes Lord Protector

1652 Robinson Crusoe is marooned on an island off the coast of South America.

1657 Cyrano de Bergerac travels to the Moon.

1660 Restoration of the British monarchy

1666 Isaac Newton (1643-1727) hit by apple, discovers gravity.

1666 Great London Fire

1674 Even Old New York was once New Amsterdam. Governor General Peter Stuyvesant forced to step down.

Cotton Mather

1681 Pennsylvania founded by William Penn as a refuge for Quakers.

1681 Death of the last dodo.

1682 Louis XIV (1638-1715) moves the court to Versailles

1683 Moll Flanders (born c. 1613) writes her memoirs.

1686 Robinson Crusoe returns to Europe along with Friday, his Indian companion.

1690 Founding of Miskatonic University

1691 Captain William Kidd (1654-1701) sets sail as a privateer.

1692 The Salem Witch Trials

1692 Dunwich, Mass founded.

1694-1778 Voltaire

1698 The Man in the Iron Mask imprisoned in Bastille.

1698 Stradivarius begins making his classic violins.

1698 Birth of Carmilla Karnstein, who later becomes a vampire. (She is destroyed before 1862.)

1699 Williamsburg becomes the capital of Virginia.

1699 Lemuel Gulliver (1660-1727+) shipwrecked on Lilliput, where he remains until 1701.

Enlightenment
1703 Peter the Great (1672-1725) founds St. Petersburg.

1703 Gulliver discovers Brobdingnag in northwest North America, staying there until 1705.

1707 Gulliver visits Laputa and other Pacific islands, returning to England in 1710.

1711 Gulliver meets the Houyhnhnms and is exiled from their land in 1715, when he makes his final return to England.

1711 Rob Roy McGregor (1671-1734) becomes an outlaw.

1713 Varney the Vampire throws himself into Mount Vesuvius.

1716 Edward "Blackbeard" Teach (1680-1718) becomes a pirate captain.

1718 New Orleans founded.

1719 A spell put on the village of Brigadoon.

1720 Jack Sparrow recaptures the Black Pearl.

1752 Ben Franklin (1706-1790) flies his kite.

1737 Baron Munchhausen (b. 1720) begins his adventures.

1737 Comte D'erlette publishes Cultes des Goules.

1738 George Washington (1732-1799) cuts down a cherry tree; admits it.

1739 Dick Turpin hanged at York as a horse thief.

1741 Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) begins his career of seduction.

1742 Tom Jones' picaresque adventures

1752 Munchhausen retires to his country estate, where he dies in 1797.

1754 Beginning of the French and Indian War.

1756 British prisoners kept in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

1757 Natty Bumppo (1717-1804) fights alongside the last of the Mohicans.

1758 Voyage of Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins to Treasure Island

1759 Adventures of Candide and Dr. Pangloss

1762 Catherine the Great (1729-1796) becomes Empress of Russia.

1763 The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) begins his life of libertinage.

1763 Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon draw the line.

1765 John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), invents the sandwich to facilitate gambling.

1768 Captain James Cook (1728-1779) makes his first voyage to the Pacific.

1773 The Boston Tea Party, in which the Sons of Liberty, dressed as Indians and led by Sam Adams (1722-1803), dumped tea into Boston Harbor in protest of British trade policies.

1774 Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) declares, "Let them eat cake!"

1775 Daniel Boone (1734-1820) blazes the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap to open Kentucky to pioneers.

1775 Silversmith Paul Revere (1734-1818) rides to Lexington to warn "The British are coming!"

1775 Battle of Bunker Hill

1775 Patrick Henry (1736-1799) declares, "Give me liberty or give me death!"

1775 Ethan Allen (1738-1789) captures Ticonderoga with his Green Mountain Boys (and Benedict Arnold).

1776 Thomas Paine (1737-1809) publishes Common Sense.

1776 Nathan Hale (b. 1755), revolutionary spy, regrets that he has but one life to give to his country.

1776 Betsy Ross (1752-1836) sews the first American flag.

1776 Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, signed in Philadelphia by John Hancock and others.

1776 Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) founds the Bavarian Illuminati.

1776 Adam Smith writes The Wealth of Nations.

1776 Washington crosses the Delaware to attack the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton.

1777 Washington camps at Valley Forge for the winter.

1780 Benedict Arnold conspires with spy John Andre to betray West Point.

1780 Francis Marion earns the nickname The Swamp Fox.

1780 L'Estat becomes a vampire.

Lord Cornwallis surrenders to the Marquis de Lafayette

1785 The alchemist Comte de Cagliostro (1743?-1795?) is implicated in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace (belonging to Marie Antoinette). His birth may be much, much earlier than the date given in records, and it's unclear whether he has ever died.

1785 Blair Witch active in Maryland.

1787 U.S. Constitution written.

1787 Thomas Jefferson summons Sally Hemings to live with him in Paris.

Modern Era
1789 French Revolution. Storming of the Bastille, which frees the Marquis de Sade.

Jacobin

1789 Dr. Guillotin proposes the use of the device that now bears his name.

1789 Fletcher Christian (1764-1793) leads a mutiny against Captain William Bligh (1754-1817) on the H.M.S. Bounty.

1790 Headless Horseman terrifies Ichabod Crane--rival of Brom Bones for the hand of Katrina Van Tassel--in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

1792 Victor Frankenstein (1770-1799) creates his Monster

1792 Mike Fink (1780-1823) establishes himself as the best shooter in Ohio. He becomes the King of the Riverboats.

1793 Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) launches the Reign of Terror. Sir Percy Blakeney becomes the Scarlet Pimpernel to rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine and Citizen Chauvelin.

1794 Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803) wins freedom for the slaves of Haiti.

1794 Whiskey Rebellion

1795 Louis XVII, the Lost Dauphin (b. 1785), smuggled out of France.

1795 British dandy Beau Brummel popularizes the necktie.

1796 Jean Valjean imprisoned in the Toulon Penitentiary

1796 Napoleon marries Josephine.

1798 Malthus predicts that population will outrun the food supply.

Napoleonic Era
1799 Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) becomes first consul of the French Republic.

1799 Davy Crockett (1786-1836) runs away from home to become King of the Wild Frontier.

1800 John Adams becomes the first president to move into the White House, though he shortly has to move out.

1800 Thomas Jefferson elected president.

1801 Johnny Appleseed (1776-1847) begins planting apple trees in the Ohio wilderness.

1804 Vice President Aaron Burr shoots Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton

1804-1806 Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark(1770-1838), led by their Indian guide Sacagawea (1787-1812), explore the new Louisiana Purchase on a cross-continental expedition.

1804 Napoleon becomes Emperor of France, with Josephine as his empress.

1806 Don Diego de la Vega (b. 1782) assumes the identity of Zorro to combat the tyrannical Spanish government of California.

1806 Jean Lafitte (d. 1826) begins his career as a pirate, operating out of Grand Terre island, south of New Orleans.

1806 Zebulon Pike spots Pike's Peak.

1808 James Madison elected president; Dolly Madison becomes first lady.

1809 Abraham Lincoln born in a log cabin.

1809-1849 Edgar Allan Poe

1810 Napoleon divorces Josephine.

1811 Luddites, led by General Ned Ludd, begin campaign of sabotage in Nottingham.

1812 Napoleon invades Russia.

1812 Lord Byron (1788-1824) begins his poetic career.

1812 War of 1812 begins.

1814 The British burn the White House; Dolly Madison flees with George Washington's portrait.

Romantic Era
1814-1859

1814 Pirate Jean Lafitte (1780-1826) helps Col. Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans.

1814 Napoleon forced to abdicate; exiled to Elba.

1814 Metternich (1773-1859) orchestrates the Congress of Vienna.

1815 Napoleon escapes from Elba and is finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.

1815 Edmond Dantes falsely imprisoned in the Chateau d'If.

1815 Mike Fink leaves the Ohio River when it becomes too civilized.

1819 Simon Bolivar proclaims the republic of Gran Columbia.

1819 The vampire Lord Ruthven appears in London society.

1823 Texas Rangers founded.

1823 Mike Fink dies on the Yellowstone River.

1823 President James Monroe declares his doctrine.

1823 Lord Byron fights for Greek independence.

1827 Joseph Smith receives golden plates from the angel Moroni.

1828 Andrew Jackson elected president; mobs enter White House.

1828 Davy Crockett elected to Congress.

1828 First prisoners sent up the river to Sing Sing in upstate New York.

1829 Dantes escapes from d'If, obtains the treasure of Monte Cristo.

1831 Nat Turner's rebellion.

1831 Alexis de Tocqueville tours America

1831 Charles Darwin sets off in The Beagle, which reaches the Galapagos in 1835 and returns to England in 1836.

1832 Birth of Pecos Bill

1835 Oliver Twist is educated by Fagin and the Artful Dodger.

1836 Davy Crockett (b. 1786) and Jim Bowie (b. 1796) killed at the Battle of the Alamo.

1836 Sam Houston defeats Santa Anna to found the Lone Star Republic.

1836 Abraham Lincoln becomes a lawyer.

1836 Friedrich von Junzt (1795-1840) writes Unaussprechlichen Kulten.

1837 Queen Victoria becomes ruler of the British Empire.

1839 Dantes appears in Paris as the Count of Monte Cristo.

1839 The Amistad mutiny.

1840 Opium Wars begin in China.

1841 A series of murders on Paris' Rue Morgue are solved by the detective August Dupin.

1842 Pioneers begin using the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City.

1842 Ada Byron helps Charles Babbage invent the computer.

1844 Great auk extinct.

1845 Henry David Thoreau moves to Walden Pond.

1845 Dr. John Dolittle learns to talk to animals.

1845 Birth of Albus Dumbledore.

1846 California Republic proclaimed

1846-48 Mexican-American War

1847 Deseret founded as Mormon homeland by Brigham Young.

1847 The Irish potato famine begins.

1848 Karl Marx and Frederich Engels publish the Communist Manifesto.

1849 California Gold Rush. Death of Darling Clementine.

1849 Harriet Tubman begins rescuing slaves in Maryland.

1850 Allan Pinkerton (1819-84) establishes his detective agency.

1852 Devil's Island opens as a French penal colony, closing in 1946.

1852 The Rock Island Line begins running between Chicago and Rock Island, Illinois.

1854 Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) nurses British troops during the Crimean War.

1854 Chief Seattle declares that "all things are connected."

1858 Geronimo (1829-1909) goes on warpath to avenge his wife; captured 1886.

1858 Sir Richard Burton discovers the Mountains of the Moon.

1858 Lincoln debates Douglas.

1859 Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species.

1859 Norton I proclaims himself Emperor of These United States and Protector of Mexico.

1859 John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry

1860 Pony Express established

Chattanooga Choo-Choo

Wabash Cannonball

Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe

1860 Abraham Lincoln elected president.

1861 Battle of Fort Sumter starts U.S. Civil War.

1862 Alice Liddell goes down the rabbit hole to Wonderland.

1862 Anna Leonowens becomes tutor to the children of the King of Siam.

1862 House of the Rising Sun opens in New Orleans

1862 Battle of Antietam

1863 Professor Axel Lindenbrock makes a journey to the center of the Earth.

1863 Emancipation Proclamation

1863 Death of "Stonewall" Jackson

1863 Battle of Gettysburg

1864 General Tso defeats the Taiping Rebellion.

1865 Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox.

1865 John Wilkes Booth assassinates Lincoln.

Gilded Age
1866-1890

1866 John Carter is transported to Barsoom.

Second International

Third International

Propaganda of the Deed

1865 A cannon fired from Florida sends three explorers from the Earth to the Moon.

1865 Nemo conducting biological experiments on the Mysterious Island (34°57′S 150°30′W about 2,500 km east of New Zealand).

1866 Using the advanced submarine Nautilus, Captain Nemo begins a campaign of terror against all sea powers.

Jules Verne (1828-1905)

H.G. Wells

1867-1882 Former Confederate spy Jesse James (b. 1847) leads a gang of outlaws in a series of spectacular crimes, including the great Northfield, Minnesota raid of 1876. Though officially killed in 1882, James was reportedly seen as late as 1948.

1867 Beginning of the commercial buffalo hunt.

1868 Scarlett O'Hara marries Rhett Butler.

1868 Buffalo Bill Cody wins his nickname in a buffalo-killing contest.

1868 Ulysses S. Grant elected president.

1869 Leland Stanford hammers the Golden Spike to complete the transcontinental railroad.

1870 Calamity Jane (1852-1903) becomes a scout for Gen. George Custer.

1871 Paris Commune established.

1871 Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) becomes chancellor of the German Empire (until 1890).

1871 Mrs. O'Leary's cow starts the Great Chicago Fire.

1871 As Marshal of Abilene, Kansas, Wild Bill Hickok disarms John Wesley Hardin.

1872 Phileas Fogg circumnavigates the globe in 80 days.

1872 Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) splits with Marx at the First International

1873 Dorian Gray (1853-1891) has his picture painted.

1874 John Reid (b. 1850), the only survivor of a massacred band of Texas Rangers, adopts the persona of the Lone Ranger in order to pursue the killers.

1874 The Marie Celeste is found floating off the coast of Portugal, its crew mysteriously vanished.

1876 Gen. George Custer killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn by Lakota Indians led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

1877 Chief Joseph (1840-1904) of the Nez Perce declares, "I will fight no more forever."

1877 Thomas Edison (1847-1931) invents the phonograph, his first major invention.

1877 Hanging of the Molly McGuires

1878 Start of the Hatfield/McCoy feud across the Kentucky/West Virginia border, which continues until 1891.

1878 Ned Kelly (1854-1880) goes into hiding in the Outback.

1879 Zulu war.

1880 A phantom terrorizes the French Opera.

1881 Sherlock Holmes (1854-1957) meets Dr. James Watson

1881 Billy the Kid (William Bonney, b. 1861) shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett.

1881 John Henry "Doc" Holliday (1851-1887) and Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) win a gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Ariz.

1882 Judge Roy Bean becomes the Law West of the Pecos.

1882 Nietzsche (1844-1900) declares God is dead.

1883 Extinction of the quagga.

1883 Dinah working on the railroad, blowing her horn.

1884 Allan Quartermain (b. 1830) discovers King Solomon's Mines.

1884 The Buffalo virtually extinct.

1885 Annie Oakley joins Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show.

1886 Dr. Henry Jekyll is the victim of his own strange experiments.

1887 John Henry (b. 1844) dies in a contest with a steam engine.

1887 Holmes encounters Irene Adler.

1887 Revolution on the Island of Dr. Moreau.

1889-1890 New York World reporter Nelly Bly bests Fogg's time by crossing the globe in 72 days.

1888 Mighty Casey strikes out in Mudville, Massachusetts.

1888-1946+ The infant Lord Graystone is adopted by gorillas and becomes Tarzan of the Apes.

Cheetah

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

1888 Jack the Ripper murders

1888 Holmes is forced to consult with his brother Mycroft, who is highly placed in British intelligence.

1889 Marlow travels up the Congo with a Polish-born steamship captain named Joseph Conrad to encounter a megalomaniacal colonist named Kurtz.

1889 Completion of the Eiffel Tower

1889 The Johnstown Flood

Gaslight
1891 Holmes apparently killed in a battle with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.

1891 Death of Dorian Gray

1892 Lizzie Borden (allegedly) gave her mother 40 whacks in Fall River, Mass.;

1892 Arsene Lupin begins a life of crime.

1893 The vampire Dracula is foiled in his attempt to colonize Britain by Dr. Abraham Van Helsing.

Vampirella

1894 Rudolf Rassendyll impersonates his distant cousin, King Rudolph of Ruritania--the Prisoner of Zenda.

1894 The reappearance of Sherlock Holmes.

1895 H.G. Wells travels into the year 800,000.

1895 Charles Foster Kane (b. 1864) decides it would be fun to run a newspaper.

1895 Lumiere brothers invent cinema.

1896 Butch Cassidy (1866-1908?) recruits the Sundance Kid (1867-1908?) into his Wild Bunch.

1896 William McKinley elected president.

1898 The U.S.S. Maine explodes in Havana Harbor, sparking the Spanish-American War (with a little help from William Randolph Hearst). Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919) leads his Rough Riders in a charge up San Juan Hill.

1899 Freud (1856-1939) discovers the Id.

1899 Boxer Rebellion begins.

1899 Boer War begins.

1900 Dorothy Gale transported via tornado to Munchkinland.

1900 Disappearances at Hanging Rock.

1900 Casey Jones dies with his hand on the whistle.

1900 Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton make their first expedition to Antarctica.

1901 Teddy Roosevelt becomes president when William McKinley (b. 1843) is assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.

1901 Dr. Cavor invents Cavorite and becomes one of the First Men in the Moon.

1902 Martian invaders land in southeast England, devastating the countryside before succumbing to bacterial infection.

1903 Holmes retires to Sussex to raise bees.

1903 The Wright Brothers invent the airplane.

1904 Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) establishes the Ordo Templi Orientalis.

1904 Wendy and her brothers taken to Neverland by Peter Pan.

1905 Ivan Pavlov trains his dog to drool. 

1905 Albert Einstein (1879-1955) discovers the theory of relativity.

1906 San Francisco Earthquake

1907 Cthulhu cultists captured near New Orleans

1908 A multi-megaton explosion occurs in Tunguska, Siberia.

1908 Tom Swift (b. 1892) begins his inventing career in upstate New York.

1909 Jane Porter meets Tarzan in the jungle.

1909 Robert Peary reaches the North Pole (or does he?).

1910 Tarzan discovers the Lost City of Opar.

1910 Mary Poppins goes to work as a nanny for the Banks family.

1912 Sinking of the Titanic.

1912 Scott dies on an attempt to reach the South Pole. Roald Admundsen is the first to reach the pole.

1912 Professor Challenger (1863-1938) discovers the Lost World in Brazil.

1912 Woodrow Wilson elected president.

1914 Carl Jung (1875-1961) splits with Freud

1914 Panama Canal opened

1914 Discovery of Pellucidar at the Earth's core.

1914 Charlie Chaplin becomes "The Tramp".

1914 Passenger pigeon extinct.

The Great War
1914-1918

1914 Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand starts World War I.

1915 Albert Einstein formulates the Theory of Relativity.

1915 Shackleton’s Endurance is stuck in Antarctic ice

1915 RMS Lusitania sunk by a German U-boat.

1916 Gregori Rasputin (b. 1870), advisor to the czarina, is reportedly killed.

1916-1918 T.E. Lawrence assists freedom fighters in Arabia

1916 Pancho Villa (1878-1923) raids New Mexico.

1917 Mata Hari (b. 1876) executed by a French firing squad.

1917 Bolshevik Revolution

1917 John Reed covers 10 days that shook the world.

1917 Vladimir Lenin arrives at the Finland Station.

Gramsci

1918 Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron (b. 1892), shot down over France.

1918 Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) wounded on the Italian front.

1918 Rin Tin Tin born in war-torn France (dies 1932).

1918 The Land That Time Forgot discovered near Antarctica by a German U-boat.

1918 Death of Rosa Luxemburg

1918 Death of last Caroline parakeet

1918 A British veteran becomes the Cenobite known as Pinhead.

1919 Treaty of Versailles

Jazz Age
1919-1929 Ernest Hemingway

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald

Mae West

Rudolph Valentino

Douglas Fairbanks

1919 The respectable Doctor Caligari, warden of an asylum, is "falsely" accused of keeping a homicidal somnabulist named Cesare in his cabinet.

1920 Beginning of Prohibition, which lasts until 1933

1920 Benito Mussolini takes power in Italy.

1920 Warren G. Harding elected president.

1922 The tomb of Tutankhamen is discovered and opened by Egyptologist Howard Carter; the discovers are said to be afflicted by an ancient curse.

1922 Death of Jay Gatsby

1922 Pretty Boy Floyd (1904-1934) begins a life of crime when a sheriff's deputy is rude to his young wife.

1923-1927 The height of the career of Lon Chaney (1883-1930) as a "Man of a Thousand Faces."

1923 Calvin Coolidge becomes president when Harding dies.

1924 The Teapot Dome scandal tarnishes the Warren Harding administration.

1924 J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) is the first director of the FBI, a post that he holds until his death.

1924 First modern sighting of Bigfoot in Washington State.

1925 A resurgence of activity among Cthulhu cultists coincides with tectonic disturbances in the South Pacific.

1925 Clara Bow becomes the "It Girl".

1925 Charlie Chan working as a police detective in Honolulu.

1926 Escape artist Harry Houdini (b. 1874) dies from a punch to the stomach by a fan.

1926 Route 66 established.

1927 Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) makes the first solo flight across the Atlantic.

1927 Frank Hardy (b. 1911) and Joe Hardy (b. 1912) begin solving crimes in Bayport, N.Y.

1927 The Jazz Singer, first talking picture.

1928 Innsmouth, Mass. raided by federal agents; Esoteric Order of Dagon driven underground.

1928 Wilbur Whately (b. 1913) killed while breaking into the library at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Mass. Whately's hometown of Dunwich, Mass. is hit by horror.

1928 Joseph Stalin becomes supreme leader of Soviet Union

1928 Herbert Hoover elected president

Great Depression
1929-

1929 Al Capone's gang carries out the Valentine's Day Massacre. Eliot Ness (1903-1957) appointed to head the Treasury Department's Untouchables, a squad of nine assigned to bring down Capone.

1929 Black Friday

1929 Ellery Queen begins solving mysteries in New York City.

1929 Kent Allard aka Lamont Cranston aka The Shadow assembles a team of agents and begins fighting crime in New York City.

1929 Trotsky exiled

1930 Nancy Drew (b. 1914) begins solving crimes in River Heights, Illinois.

1930 Bluesman Robert Johnson sells his soul at the crossroads in Rosedale, Mississippi.

1930 Judge Crater (b. 1889) disappears.

1930 Sam Spade gets involved with the hunt for the Maltese Falcon.

1930 Mahatma Gandhi leads the Salt March

1930 Creation of the Gulag

1930 Molotov (1890-1986) becomes Soviet prime minister.

1930 Rube Goldberg begins inventing his devices.

1930 B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) creates the Skinner Box.

1931 The Pabodie Expedition to Antarctica's Mountains of Madness ends in disaster.

1931 Empire State Building built.

1931 Doc Savage (b. 1901) begins fighting evil with his Fabulous Five.

1931-1935 Ma Barker masterminds her family's crime spree, which ended when she and one of her sons are killed in an FBI raid.

1932 American millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett is murdered on the Orient Express, a crime solved by detective Hercule Poirot (b. 1864?). 1932 Charles Lindbergh's infant son kidnapped.

1932 The priest Imhotep released from imprisonment.

1932 FDR elected president; "Happy Days Are Here Again"

1933 Kong, a giant gorilla, is discovered on Skull Island in the Pacific and brought to New York City for exhibition with unfortunate consequences.

1933 Lawrence Talbot is infected with lycanthropy in Wales.

1933 Adolf Hitler takes power in Germany.

1933 Private eye Philip Marlowe

1933 Perry Mason

1934 Loch Ness Monster photographed for first time.

Yeti

Invisibility serum

1934 John Dillinger (b. 1903) reportedly killed by the FBI in Chicago.

1934 Bonnie Parker (b. 1910) and Clyde Barrow (b. 1909) killed in a shootout with Texas and Louisiana state police.

1934 Alcatraz becomes a federal prison.

1922 Pretty Boy Floyd (1904-1934) begins a life of crime.

1935 Hoover Dam completed.

1936 Ark of the Covenant recovered by Professor Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr.

1936 Britt Reid (grand-nephew of the Lone Ranger) begins fighting crime as The Green Hornet, assisted by the martial artist Kato.

1936 Moscow show trials begin.

1936 Last Tasmanian wolf dies in captivity.

1937 Spanish Civil War won by Francisco Franco, lost by George Orwell.

1937 Rape of Nanking

1937 Hindenberg disaster. "Oh the humanity!"

1937 Golden Gate Bridge completed.

1937 U.S. gold reserves held at Fort Knox.

1937 Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

1937 Sheena becomes Queen of the Jungle.

1938 Albert Hoffman discovers LSD while riding his bicycle.

1938 Neville Chamberlain strikes a deal with Adolf Hitler in Munich for "peace in our time"

1938 A second Martian invasion in New Jersey is halted even more quickly by lack of immunity.

1939? Oliver Warbucks takes on a foster child named Annie.

1939 Phil Marlowe investigates the affairs of the Sternwood family.

Stalin

Churchill

1933 Nick and Nora Charles solve the mystery of the Thin Man.

World War II
William Casey

General Patton

General Eisenhower

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Terry and the Pirates

Emperor Hirohito

General Tojo

Himmler

Goering

Auschwitz, Dachau, Belsen, Buchenwald

1939 Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne begins fighting crime under the guise of The Batman.

1939 Sky Captain Joe Sullivan defeats the bizarre plans of Dr. Totenkopf.

1940 Winston Churchill becomes prime minister, offers blood, sweat and tears.

1940 Dunkirk

1940 Marshall Petain becomes head of Vichy France, Charles DeGaulle becomes leader of the Free French.

1940 The Blitz

1940 Pevensie children discover a doorway to Narnia.

1941 Kilroy was there.

1941 Death of publisher Charles Foster Kane; his last word is "rosebud."

1941 Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S., becomes a camp guard at Buchenwald.

1941 Goebbels puts forth the Big Lie theory.

1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor

1941 Rick Blaine joins the French Resistance in Casablanca.

1942 Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945) becomes the puppet president of Norway.

1942 Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) retreats from Philippines, vows "I will return".

1942 Eichmann begins carrying out the Final Solution

1942 Battle of Stalingrad turns the tide in Europe.

1942 Battle of Midway turns the tide in Pacific.

1942 Bataan Death March

1943 Bridge over the River Kwai built and destroyed.

1943 Josef Mengele becomes the Angel of Death at Auschwitz

1943 Albert Camus joins the Resistance

1943 Tokyo Rose begins propaganda broadcasts

1944 The Great Escape

1944 Anne Frank (1929-1945) is arrested along with her family after living in hiding for two years.

1944 General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, forced to commit suicide after plotting against Hitler.

1944 D-Day

1944 Warsaw Uprising

1944 Battle of the Bulge

1944 Werner Von Braun invents the V-2.

1945 Bombing of Dresden. Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time.

1945 Harry Truman becomes president.

1945 Hitler, Eva Braun said to commit suicide in bunker.

1945 Bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki

Atomic Age
1945 Death of John Birch.

1945 Operation Paper Clip relocates Nazi scientists like Werner Von Braun to the United States.

1945 Flight 19, a squadron of Navy bombers, disappears in the Bermuda Triangle.

1945 Don Vito Corleone (1887-1955) survives an assassination attempt.

1946 Formation of U.N.C.L.E. as a U.N. secret service.

1947 Jack Kerouac goes on the road.

1947 First sighting of flying saucers

1947 An extraterrestrial craft crashes and is recovered at Roswell, N.M..

1947 First modern report of the Men in Black, mysterious figures who appear after a UFO sighting.

1947 House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigating Communist infiltration of Hollywood.

1948 Sgt. Joe Friday begins work for the LAPD; he retires in 1970.

1948 The USS Eldridge disappears from Philadelphia and reappears in Norfolk, Virginia, in an incident known as the Philadelphia Experiment.

1949 Holden Caulfield (b. 1933) goes back to New York after losing the fencing swords.

1950 The CIA begins a mind-control research program codenamed MK ULTRA.

1950 James Bond (b. 1920) assigned to the 00 section of British intelligence. His work there continues at least until 1964.

1950 Sen. Joe McCarthy (1908-1957) declares he has in his hand a list of known Communists.

1950 Korean War begins. Hawkeye, Pierce, Frank Burns, Hot Lips Hooligan, Radar, Klinger.

1951 Flying saucer lands on Mall, causes Earth to stand still. Klaatu, Gort.

1951 Tommy becomes deaf, dumb and blind.

1951 Johnny Cash shoots a man in Reno just to watch him die; ends up in Folsom State Prison.

1952 Sgt. Raymond Shaw captured, brainwashed during the Korean War.

1952 Bond encounters Dr. No in Jamaica.

1952 The Mau Mau rebellion

1952 The Air Force launches Project Blue Book to investigate UFO reports. The project is terminated in 1970.

1952 Dwight Eisenhower elected president.

1953 Sir Edmund Hillary conquers Mt Everest, reports seeing Yeti footprints.

1953 It came from outer space.

1953 J. R. "Bob" Dobbs founds the Church of the Sub-Genius.

1954 Giant ants attack, the first of a number of giant invertebrate incidents.

1954 Ichthyoid creature discovered in Black Lagoon.

1954 Hydrogen Bomb tested at Bikini Atoll.

1954 Gojira, a giant dinosaur revived and mutated by nuclear testing, attacks Tokyo, the first of a number of Atomic Age monsters to cause havoc around the world.

1954 Joe McCarthy asked if at long last he had no decency; end of his era.

1954 Marilyn Monroe marries Joe Dimaggio, and is divorced later in the year.

1954 Buckminster Fuller patents the geodesic dome.

1955 Area 51 established in Nevada.

1955 Rosa Parks refuses to move to the back of the bus.

1955 Actor James Dean (b. 1931) dies in an accident in his Porsche 550 Spyder.

1955 Marty McFly goes Back to the Future

1956 Napoleon Solo becomes an agent of U.N.C.L.E.

1956 Rodan, a mutant pterodactyl, terrorizes Japan.

1956 Bela Lugosi's dead (b. 1882).

1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers begins in Santa Mira, California.

1957 Arrest of psychotic killer Ed Gein in Plainfield, Wisc.

1957 Hugh Hefner publishes first issue of Playboy.

1957 Jason Voorhees drowns at Camp Crystal Lake, New Jersey.

1958 Murders at the Bates Motel near Fairvale, Calif.

1958 Bond foils a plan to raid Fort Knox by the SMERSH operative Auric Goldfinger. Bond defeats Goldfinger's henchman Oddjob and seduces his ally Pussy Galore.

1958 Extraterrestrial Blob lands in Southwest. Attack of the 50-foot woman.

1958 Lt. Frank Columbo (born c. 1930) joins the LAPD.

1959 The Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, unseats the Batista dictatorship.

1959 Plane crash kills Buddy Holly (b. 1936), Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper.

1960 U-2 spy plane shot down over Soviet Union.

1960 Nazi scientists in Brazil successfully (and repeatedly) clone Hitler.

1960 Mayor Richard Daley helps John F. Kennedy get elected.

1961 President JFK tells you to ask what you can do for your country.

1961 New wave of Cthulhu cult activity begins.

1961 James Bond encounters Ernst Blofeld of SPECTRE.

1961 Noam Chomsky becomes a professor at MIT.

1961 The Bay of Pigs operation fails to unseat Castro.

1961 Berlin Wall constructed.

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

1962 Nelson Mandela (b. 1918) imprisoned by South Africa with help of CIA.

1962 Student Peter Parker, bitten by a radioactive spider, begins fighting crime.

1962 Gamma Bomb accident turns scientist Bruce Banner into The Hulk.

1962 Giant caterpillar attacks Tokyo, later transforms into Mothra.

1962 Marilyn Monroe sings "Happy Birthday Mr. President"; later found dead.

1963 Triffids have their day.

1963 Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown (b. 1953) begins investigating crimes in Idaville, Florida.

1963 Gloria Steinem works undercover as a Playboy bunny.

1963 Inspector Clouseau recovers the Pink Panther diamond.

1963 The god Thor reappears on Earth after a long absence.

1963 Dr. Steven Strange begins a career as a mystic after an accident ends his medical career.

1963 Professor Charles Xavier sets up his School for Gifted Youngsters in Salem Center, New York.

1963 Michael Meyers kills his sister and is committed to a mental institution.

1963 Assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunmen, part of a conspiracy or an innocent patsy. Lyndon Johnson becomes president.

1963 Double agent Kim Philby defects to Moscow.

G. Gordon Liddy

Aquarian Age
1963 At the March on Washington, Martin Luther King declares he has a dream.

1964 Ghidra

1964 The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show.

1964 Doctor Strangelove (almost) causes the end of the world.

1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident

1964 Captain America unfrozen from iceberg.

1964 Seven sea-goers are marooned on Gilligan's Island, not rescued until 1977.

1965 Gamera the giant turtle appears over Japan.

1965 Ralph Nader exposes the auto industry as unsafe at any speed.

1965 Malcolm X (b. 1925) assassinated in New York City.

1965 Watts Riots

1965 Bond kills Francisco Scaramanga, The Man with the Golden Gun.

1966 Birth of Damien Thorn, potential Antichrist. Another candidate is born about the same time to Rosemary Woodhouse in New York City.

1966 Mao and the Gang of Four launch the Cultural Revolution.

1966 Death and replacement of Paul McCartney.

1967 The Summer of Love

1967 Guerrilla leader Che Guevara (b. 1928) captured and killed by the CIA in Bolivia.

1967 Attempt to levitate the Pentagon

1967 John McCain shot down over North Vietnam.

1968 Martin Luther King (b. 1929), Robert Kennedy (b. 1925) assassinated.

1968 Abbie Hoffman leads the Yippies during the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

1968 Zombie plague near Pittsburgh.

1968 My Lai massacre, Tet Offensive

1968 John Kerry on a Swift Boat in Vietnam.

1968 Richard Nixon defeats Hubert Humphrey.

1969 Henry Kissinger becomes National Security Advisor.

1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon.

1969 Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time.

1969 Woodstock

1969 Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and their dog Scooby-Doo begin investigating supernatural manifestations in their Mystery Machine.

1969 Charles Manson (b. 1934) directs his Family to commit a series of murders.

1969 Hells Angels serving as bouncers at a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, Calif., kill one of the spectators.

1970 Four Atlanta businessmen encounter troublesome locals on a canoe trip through the Georgia wilderness.

1970 Invasion of Cambodia

1970 Four dead at Kent State, Ohio.

1970 Surviving Beatles break up

1970 Captain Willard goes up the river to look for Col. Kurtz in Cambodia. 

1970 Death of Jimi Hendrix (b. 1942)

1971 D.B. Cooper's leap

1971 Capsizing of the S.S. Poseidon

1971 Singer Jim Morrison fakes his own death in Paris, retires to Africa.

1971 Detective John Shaft battles the Mob in Harlem.

1971 Idi Amin becomes president for life of Uganda; deposed in 1979, but keeps living until 2003.

1972 Astronaut Steve Austin becomes the Six Million Dollar Man.

1972 Jane Fonda goes to North Vietnam.

1972 Nixon aides break into Democratic Party offices at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigate. Deep Throat.

1972 Youngblood Priest, aka Superfly, tries to quit the cocaine business.

1972 Killer clown John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994) begins burying boys in his basement.

1972-1974 Reporter Carl Kolchak investigates a series of supernatural crimes in Las Vegas, Seattle and Chicago.

1973 Terrorist The Jackal tries to assassinate Charles de Gaulle.

1973 Energy Crisis sparked by Arab oil embargo

1973 CIA overthrows Allende.

1973 Cornelius and Zira, intelligent chimpanzees from the future, land near Southern California.

1974 Cannibal hicks attack teenage tourists in Texas; chainsaws are used by a particularly disturbed hick known as Leatherface.

1974 Daredevil Evel Knievel (b. 1938) attempts to jump the Snake River Canyon.

1974 George Smiley uncovers a mole in British intelligence

Kojack

1974 Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army,

1974 Nixon resigns.

1975 The U.S. evacuates the Saigon embassy.

1975 Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, declare Year Zero in Kampuchea.

1975 A young family flees strange happenings at a house in Amityville, N.Y.

1975 Serial killer Hannibal Lecter caught by the FBI, committed to an asylum.

1975 Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa (b. 1913) disappears.

1976 Son of Sam begins a series of murders in New York City that end in 1977.

1976 Jaime Sommers becomes the Bionic Woman

1976 Taxi driver Travis Bickle becomes a hero.

1976 UBS anchor Howard Beale declares he's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

1976 Unknown fighter Rocky Balboa gets a shot at heavyweight champion Apollo Creed.

1976 U.S. celebrates Bicentennial.

1976 Jimmy Carter elected president.

1977 A enormous UFO appears near Devil's Tower, Wyoming.

1977 Elvis Presley (b. 1935) fakes death, goes into not-very-successful hiding.

1977 Jack Torrance is hired to be the winter caretaker at Colorado's Overlook Hotel, where he moves with his wife Wendy and son Danny.

1978 Followers of Jim Jones drink the Kool-Aid in the Jonestown Massacre.

1978 Mr. Roarke establishes Fantasy Island in the Pacific Ocean, assisted by Tattoo.

1978 Michael Meyers returns home for Halloween

1979 Three Mile Island almost melts down.

1979 Nazi scientist Josef Mengele (b. 1911) dies in Brazil.

1979 Jason Voorhees (1946-1958) emerges from Crystal Lake to begin a reign of terror.

1979 Iranian students, inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini, take 52 hostages at the U.S. embassy.

1979 Jerry Falwell founds Moral Majority

1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; U.S. recruits Mujahedeen to fight.

1980 Jake and Elwood Blues released from prison

1980 John Lennon assassinated

Ratso Rizzo

1996 Ethan Hunt exposes Jim Phelps as a traitor within the Impossible Missions Force.

Contemporary
Mumia Abu-Jamal

Rush Limbaugh gets a national radio show

Ross Perot

Chuck Norris

Arnold Schwarzenegger

The Tall Man

The Cenobites

1981 AIDS first identified

1981 Ronald Reagan takes office, Iranian hostages released at same moment.

1981 CIA, Columbian cartels set up Contras.

1981 Freddy Kruger (1940-1968) begins terrorizing kids on Elm Street.

1982 ET appears in California

1982 Vietnam vet John Rambo goes to war with law enforcement officers in Hope, Washington.

1982 Positronic robots invented--following Asimov Laws.

1983 Escape of serial killer Hannibal Lecter. He is never heard from again.

1983 Invasion of Grenada

1984 First Terminator robot arrives in past

1984 J. R. "Bob" Dobbs assassinated.

(Big Brother--in parallel universe?)

Oliver North manages Iran-Contra] operation from White House basement, aided by [[Fawn Hall.

Drug dealers operating out of Mena, Arkansas.

Gen. John Singlaub supports Contra operations.

Crockett and Tubbs battle Contra-backed drug operations in Miami.

1987 First Predator spotted on Earth.

1985 Rambo rescues MIA soldiers from Vietnam.

1985 Marty McFly sent into the past by Doc Emmett Brown (b. 1920).

1988 Rambo fights in Afghanistan alongside future Al-Qaeda members.

1988 Pat Robertson starts Christian Coalition.

1988 George Bush, former CIA chief, becomes president.

1988 Much of Tokyo destroyed by the psychic Akira.

1989 The U.S. invades Panama to unseat Gen. Manuel Noriega (b. 1938), a former ally.

1989 Chernobyl disaster

1989 Berlin Wall falls

1989 Michael Moore makes Roger and Me

1990 Nelson Mandela freed, elected president in 1994.

1991 FBI agent Fox Mulder is assigned to the agency's X-Files project.

1991 Kurt Cobain records "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

1991 Gulf War

1991 Second Terminator robot

1992 Bill Clinton elected

Vince Foster commits suicide

1993 Branch Davidian compound burns to ground.

Ruby Ridge

Black Helicopters

Raccoon City

1994 Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.

1994 Newt Gingrich becomes Speaker of the House

1995 Tim McVeigh bombs the Oklahoma City federal building.

Monica Lewinsky

1994 O. J. Simpson accused of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson.

1997 Snake Plissken escapes from New York.

1999 Two disgruntled students carry out a massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School.

1999 A black monolith is discovered on the Moon near a fledgling colony.

1999 Escapees from Monster Island attack world cities, creating a need to Destroy All Monsters.

2000 Death Race 2000 held.

2000 Al Gore runs against George W. Bush. Disputed election in Florida. Supreme Court awards presidency to Bush.

2001 Captained by Dave Bowman and guided by the computer HAL 9000, Discovery 1 leaves for Jupiter on the first manned mission.

2001 World Trade Center destroyed; Pentagon attacked.

2003 Invasion of Iraq

2003 Louvre curator Jacques Saunière is found dead in the museum, an apparent victim of ritual murder.

2005 New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Future
Alex is cured of anti-social tendencies--real horrowshow.

2014 V destroys the Old Bailey

2019 Bladerunners battle replicants.

2019 Akira resurrected in Neo-Tokyo.

2022 Soylent Green goes on market

2029 Reese is sent back in time to stop The Terminator.

2030 Creation of the robot Astro Boy

2055 A time-traveller goes back to the Cretaceous period and steps on a butterfly.

2122 Nostromo encounters an alien; Ripley the sole survivor.

2156 Earth-Romulan war begins.

2161 Foundation of United Federation of Planets.

2203 Flash Gordon and Dale Arden battle Ming the Merciless on the planet Mongo.

Mars colony unleashes Doom.

Logan makes his run.

Valentine Michael Smith born on Mars.

2218 Conflict between Klingons and United Federation of Planets lasts until 2293.

2245 Enterprise commissioned

2266 Capt. James T. Kirk (2223-2293) takes command of the Enterprise.

2364 Jean-Luc Picard captain of Enterprise

2365 Contact with Borg

2371 Dr. Edward Morbius discovered on a Forbidden Planet

Robinson family lost in space.

2400 Buck Rogers

2512 Mal Reynolds buys the spaceship Serenity.

2850 Louis Wu discovers Ringworld.

2973 Founding of the Legion of Superheroes.

3955 Apes rule humans on Earth.

Baron Harkonen.

21,000 Paul Muad'ib joins the Fremen of Arrakis.

40,000 Barbarella battles Duran Duran

Apocalypse

Mad Max

800,000 Humanity divided into Eloi and Morlocks

Influential People Who Never Lived
4. Santa Claus (St. Nick)

7. Siegfried

9. Romeo and Juliet

11. Uncle Tom

13. Jim Crow

14. Oedipus

15. Lady Chatterly

16. Ebenezer Scrooge

17. Don Quixote

20. Prince Charming

21. Smokey Bear

23. Apollo and Dionysus

24. Odysseus

25. Nora Helmer

26. Cinderella

27. Shylock

28. Rosie the Riveter

29. Midas

30. Hester Prynne

32. Archie Bunker

34. Alice in Wonderland

36. Faust

37. Figaro

39. Mary Richards

40. Don Juan

45. Venus and Cupid

46. Prometheus

47. Pandora

48. G.I. Joe

52. Hansel and Gretel

53. Captain Ahab

54. Richard Blaine

57. Atticus Finch

61. Uncle Sam

63. J.R. Ewing

65. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

66. HAL 9000

68. Sam Spade

69. The Pied Piper

70. Peter Pan

72. Othello

73. The Little Tramp

76. Hercules (Herakles)

77. Dick Tracy

79. The Cat in the Hat

80. Icarus

81. Mammy

83. Amos 'n' Andy

86. Perry Mason

88. Pygmalion

89. Madame Butterfly

90. Hans Beckert

91. Dorothy Gale

92. The Wandering Jew

94. Buck (Jack London, The Call of the Wild)

95. Willy Loman

96. Betty Boop

98. Elmer Gantry

100. John Doe

101. Paul Bunyan