Date Unknown: The "Primal Egg", the single point singularity composed of all matter in the universe, explodes in an event that will eventually be called the "Big Bang" by scientists on Earth.

Date Unknown:  The Pua complete the galaxy-wide network of hyperspatial 'corridors' that will one day be referred to as 'the tramway'.  This network of artificial wormholes allows starships to travel nearly anywhere in the Galaxy.  After the Pua retreat from the Galaxy two million years later, the tramway will continue to be used by several other races.

Date Unknown:

Date Unknown:

• The Old Ones find reach the Earth and claim it as their own. They use it as a base from which to spread their influence and power throughout the Milky Way Galaxy.

• The Old Ones cause anaerobic life to form on Earth. Within a hundred million years, a complex ecosystem of anaerobic life forms, some sentient, is present on Earth.

• A series of wars begins with the Old Ones on one side and U'tua the Lawgiver, the war fleets of three of the Progenitor Races, and at least thirty of the Progenitor's more advanced client species on the other.  Eighteen centuries of constant warfare culminates in the banishment and imprisonment of the Old Ones to places outside of the universe. The victory comes at a great price, as the entire H'ch'wee, Il'th'm, and Krang species (along with every member of their various participating client species) are exterminated in the fighting. Unknown to the victors, a small number of servants of the Old Ones survive on Earth. They go into hiding deep underground.

Date Unknown:

• U'tua the Lawgiver decides to create a corps of warriors who will forever more guard the universe against the corruptive forces of the Old Ones and fight such lesser evils that might arise. To that end, he creates a weapon system by sacrificing a part of his own being to be its power source.

• Taa of Zilliphi is recruited by U'tua the Gardener and becomes the first Guardsman in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Date Unknown:

• A civilization of technologically proficient beings calling themselves the /thr arises on Earth.  The civilization builds floating cities in Earth's primordial oceans, and begins to send mechanical probes into the atmosphere, and then into outer space.
• A Chirpsthritha trading ship discovers and trades with the ocean-born civilization on Earth.
• Stromatolites (blue-green algae) evolve on the surface of Earth's oceans.  These photosynthetic, single-celled plants produce oxygen as a waste product.  Within twelve thousand years, this algae can be found in all parts of the ocean, spilling tons of oxygen into the atmosphere every year.  This oxygen begins to oxidize the iron content dissolved in Earth's oceans, a phenomena which prevents the build-up of toxic levels of oxygen.
• Iron in Earth's oceans is depleted, beginning the build-up of oxygen in the atmosphere.  Oxygen is poisonous to nearly every species of life on earth at this point.  A global catastrophe begins which results in the extinction of nearly all life on Earth.
• The Chirpsthritha rescue the last ninety thousand /thr from Earth, taking them to another planet.  Unfortunately, differences in biorhythm cycles cause the /thr to go extinct.  On Earth, the last of the floating /thr cities falls prey to oxidization, breaks up, and sinks to the bottom.
• Except in certain unusual environments, such as in the methane-rich brine pools found at the bottom of the ocean, at deep-ocean geothermal vents, in land-bound geysers on the surface, and deep within the crust of the planet, the Earth has been scoured of anaerobic life.  Species capable of processing oxygen begin to spread across the planet.

Date Unknown:

• U'tua the Lawgiver retreats from the Galaxy, leaving his Guardsman Corps to run itself and protect the Galaxy.

Date Unknown:

• A P!k gardening ship lands on earth and performs an investigation of its native life forms. The P!k conclude that while the highest order of life on the planet has reached its potential and would never become sentient, some of the lesser species do have potential.

• The P!k cause a nickel-iron asteroid 8.23 kilometers in diameter to strike the Earth near what will one day be called the Yucatan Peninsula. Enough dirt and ash is thrown into the upper atmosphere to block 75% of all sunlight reaching the surface, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs and the end of the Mesozoic Era. The P!k leave Earth's solar system with plans on returning once new species have emerged.

• Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, a primate species believed to be the last common ancestor species of all the Hominidae genera (humans, gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans) arises in what is now Spain.
• The ancestors of the orangutans speciate from the Homininae (the common ancestors of the humans, bonobos, gorillas, and chimpanzees).

• The ancestors of the chimpanzees and bonobos speciate from the Hominina (the earliest ancestors of the humans).
• Orrorin tugenensis, the "mother species" to the entire human line of evolution, arises in Africa.

• A P!k "gardening ship" lands on earth and begins experimenting with a handful of Terran species, including the ancestors of modern apes, dogs, elephants, and bears.  Their efforts eventually concentrate on the early apes and humans,  with the intention of giving these species a boost on the path to eventually evolving into sentience.
• An individual Pierolapithecus catalaunicus is captured by the P!k and force-evolved to sentience. The newly-intelligent creature is contained in an automated laboratory, continually "adjusted" and used as a test-animal for the P!k development process.

• Homo habilis ("handy man"), the first species to be considered recognizably "human" (as opposed to being a bipedal ape species) arises.  Homo habilis has a more advanced and complex social organization than earlier species, uses more advanced tools than any species before, and were more adaptable than previous species.
• The Chirpsthritha go extinct as a species.

• Homo ergaster ("working man") arises in southern Africa.  Homo ergaster is the first of the hominid species to use true language, and the tools used include stone cleavers and hand axes intentionally shaped from stone to have a bifacial (two-sided) cutting edge.
• Troglodytes gorilla erectus ("monstrous upright gorilla") arises in what will later be the Congo region of Africa.

• Homo sapiens heidelbergensis ("thinking man of Heidelberg") arises in what is now Germany.  This species closely resembles the classic modern opinion of "cave men" (even moreso than the later Homo sapiens neanderthalensis did).  Homo heidelbergensis was as only slightly shorter than modern humans, used spears as hunting weapons, and used a much more complicated language system than earlier species, including conceptual symbology that was the earliest predecessor to modern writing.  It is the last common ancestor species between modern humans and neanderthals.
• Gorilla gorilla habilis ("handy gorilla") arises in the mountains of eastern Africa.

• Homo sapiens neanderthalensis ("thinking man of the Neander valley") arises in Europe.
• Within a few thousand years of reaching true sapience, Neanderthal shamans discover the rudiments of magic, becoming the first wizards on Earth since the followers of the Old Ones were driven away.

• Homo sapiens sapiens ("intelligent thinking man") arises.  The original group of Homo sapiens sapiens is a single tribal group located in south-western Africa.  The descendents of this tribe will eventually spread out to conquer the entire globe.
• Homo sapiens idaltu ("father of thinking man", a misnomer) arises in central Africa.
• The last living true Homo sapiens heidelbergensis dies of old age, making the species extinct.
• The species that will eventually be labeled Homo exter tautiq sapiens ("alien man from Tautiq") arises on a planet orbiting 20 Leo Majoris.
• Homo sapiens sapiens shamans discover magic. Unlike Neanderthal magic, which is brutish and unpredictable, the Cro-Magnon wizards begin to work magic with ever-growing subtlety and efficiency.

• Homo sapiens floriensis arises in Indonesia.
• Gorilla gorilla sapiens  ("thinking gorilla") arises in the mountains of what will later be known as Uganda.

• Drawn by the call of a powerful mage, large numbers of magic users and their assorted dependants arrive on the island of Atlantis.  Having tired of the continual loss of magical knowledge by mages too afraid to share it, Atlant founds a school of magical learning in the highly magical island.  A town quickly springs up around it, forming the basis of Atlantian civilization.  Magic progresses as each generation learns from the previous generation and adds to the body of knowledge.
• A Chemoshlosh city-ship arrives at Earth.  After close to a year of careful surveys looking for a place out of the reach of the primitive sentients they find on the planet, the city ship descends, landing in Lake Vostok (in central Antarctica).  The Chemoshlosh then begin converting their starship into a colony base.

• The last living Homo floriensis is falls from a tree while gathering fruit and dies, making the species extinct.  Homo sapiens sapiens is now the sole remaining species of humanity on Earth.
• The Mangani tribe of Gorilla sapiens conquers the other local tribes, unifying the culture and language of the "talking apes".

Date Unknown:  Arachne, having become a skilled weaver, declares her skill greater even than that of Athena, the goddess of Wisdom and War as well as the weaving arts.  When confronted by Athena about this challenge, Arachne demands a contest of skill against the goddess, which Arachne then wins.  Enraged at being beaten by a prideful mortal girl, Athena turns Arachne into a spider and sentences her to be thus forever in payment for her sin of pride.

Date Unknown: Giants, dragons, et al that roam the Earth reach their peak population, and heroes such as Jason, Beuwolf etc begin confronting them as human civilization expands.  The heroes then kill and mount the magical creatures over various fireplaces, altars, and other locations.  They also use the body parts for cures and aids, and in general slaughter and hunt them down beginning a 1300 year slaughter that sends most of the species into extinction or at least a long slow terminal decline that finishes up in the 300 AD.

Date Unknown: Armed with a magical sword called Excalibur, Artaius, a half-Roman/half-Welsh nobleman, leads an army against Saxon invaders aided by a band of mounted knights and a Celtic sorcercer named Myrddin.  After a series of well-fought battles, he finally defeats the invaders at Badon Hill.  He is crowned King of Cambria a year later.

Date Unknown: Nennius, a Welsh scholar, writes the first ever work that mentions "King Arthur".  The work is a single paragraph written in Latin, taken from an even older Welsh story that had been handed down from generation to generation verbally.  The paragraph concerns itself with the "twelve great battles" that were fought by Artaius of Cambria.

Date Unknown: Viking explorer Leif Eriksen lands in what will eventually be known as Newfoundland, and founds a colony he dubs "Vinland".

Date Unknown: Sir Thomas Malory completes the work now known as "Le Morte d'Arthur", a book which is probably more responsible for the modern concept of chivalry than any other work.  Malory adds the story of Launcelot and his forbidden love for Queen Guinevere to the Arthurian legend.

April 1: Peter Ulric von Maltus is born in Bischofshofen, Austria.

May 16: Invading forces from the Daribi Confederation land in Surrey, south-west of London, England (with later landings occurring all across southern England), attempting to create a beachhead for a global invasion of Earth.  Counter-attacks and defensive fire from British forces prove almost useless against the invaders.  (The primary exception being the British battleship HMS Thunder Child, which brought down two of the Daribi warcraft during a sustained battle.)  After a long series of successful battles in which the British Army can do little more than stage long fighting retreats, the Daribi are defeated by a lack of resistance to Terran disease.  Two weeks after the invasion begins, all landing forces are dead.

June 30: Something explodes 8 kilometers above the ground near the river Tunguska, destroying about 2,150 square kilometers of Siberian taiga.  A wave of high-energy radiation catapults around the globe, starting the Age of the Superhuman.  The energy expended is estimated to be in the 10 to 15 megaton range, devastating an area of  some 1250 square kilometers.

February 27:  The Nazis burn the Reichstag Building, seat of the German government.  This gives Adolph Hitler an excuse to seize complete control over the German government.  The next day, "emergency powers" are granted to Hitler by the German parliament.

March 22:  The Dachau Concentration Camp is opened by the Nazis.  It is used primary for the imprisonment of political prisoners.

July 14:

• The Nazi Party is declared the only legal political party in Germany.
• The German parliament passes a law that strips Jews of their German citizenship.
• The German parliament passes a law authorizing forced sterilization of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have genetic defects.

November 24:  The German parliament passes the Habitual and Dangerous Criminals Act, which allows homeless people, alcoholics, and the perpetually unemployed to be rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

August 2:  Paul von Hindenberg, President of Germany dies.  Within hours, the positions of Chancellor and President are combined, giving Adolph Hitler absolute power in Germany.

May 30:  The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp is opened by the Nazis.  As with Dachau, it is primary a prison camp for political prisoners as opposed to "undesirables".

August 1:  The Summer Olympics begin in Berlin, Germany.

October 2:  Peter von Maltus is assigned to lead the Projekt-Ubermenschen by Adolph Hitler himself.

April 5:  David Danner enlists in the US Army.

April 26:  The Nazi government requires all Jews to register wealth and property, including homes and businesses.

September 30: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, intended to head off German aggressiveness.  The pact seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing that nation over to German control in the name of peace.  Although the agreement was to give into Hitler's hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia's coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power.

October 15:  Germany occupies the Sudetenland.

October 24:  Warcraft sent by the Daribi Confederation land near Grover's Mills, New Jersey and begin a second invasion of the Earth.  The military might of the United States is useless against the Daribi's superior technology, just as the English army was ineffective in 1902. Once again, the invaders are defeated by a lack of resistance to Terran disease.  A week after the invasion begins, all landing forces are dead.  The United States government confiscates as much of the Daribi technology as they can.

October 31: Well-known writer/producer Orson Welles is hired by the U.S. government to assist in the cover up of the Daribi invasion.

November 7:  Ernst von Rath, Third Secretary of the German embassy in Paris, is assassinated by a Polish Jew in response to Germany's harsh treatment of his people.

November 9:  In response to the assassination of von Rath, Nazi storm troopers along with members of the SS and Hitler Youth beat and murder Jews, break into and wreck Jewish homes, and brutalize Jewish women and children while police and crowds of spectators watch.  About 25,000 Jewish men are rounded up and sent to concentration camps.  This will later become known as Kristallnacht.

November 12:  The German government fines the collective Jewish population one billion marks for "damages related to their criminal activities during Kristallnacht."

February 12: Frenchman Marc Robitaille uses his ever-growing strength and invulnerability to foil a robbery at the Louvre, in Paris.  Donning a mask, he becomes known as Resolu, the hero of France!  The papers quickly dub him the "Gallant Warrior" of France for his bravery and joie-de-vivre.

March 15: German forces pour into Czechoslovakia, blatantly violating the Munich pact.

May 19:  The Nazis open the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp.  It is used primary as a woman's prison camp.

August 24:  The Germans and Russians sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Act, creating a non-aggression pact between the two countries, and pledging neutrality by either party should either be attacked by a third party.

September 1: German troops invade Poland, led by the Nazi superman called Sturmfurhrer.  He is the first superhuman to gain widespread notoriety.

September 3:  England and France declare war on Germany, beginning World War II.

September 14: The German submarine U39 attacks a British battlegroup and is sunk.

September 17:  The Soviets invade eastern Poland, effectively dividing the country in two with the Germans.

October 6:  The Nazis begin a program of euthenizing the sick and disabled.

January 14: Ultra-Man and Sturmfuehrer meet each other for the first time in Krakow, Poland.  Their battle manages to destroy half the city before Ultra-Man drives Sturmfuhrer off.  However there is no clear cut victor.

January 25:  The Auschwitz Concentration Camp is opened by the Nazis.

April 9:  Germany invades Denmark.

May 10:  The German army bypasses the Maginot Line and invades France.

June 14: The Nazis occupy Paris.  Resolu opts to stay in the city after the Nazis invade, rather than escape to England.  His spirited determination becomes a backbone for the French Resistance.

June 22:  France surrenders to Germany.

September 27:  Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact, forming the Axis.

October 7:  The Germans invade Romania.

October 21:  Reginald Wannsinger's family (including Reginald himself, his father Henri, his mother Lotti, his brother Holitz, and his sisters Katherine and Demut) are rounded up by the SS and taken to Dachau Concentration Camp.

April 6:  Germany invades Yugoslavia.

June 22:  The Nazis invade the Soviet Union breaking the Molotov-Ribbentrop Act and initiating Operation Barbarossa, the single largest military operation (in terms of manpower and casualties) in the history of mankind.

September 19:  Kiev falls to German forces.

December 7:  Naval air forces of the Empire of Japan stage a massive sneak attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawai'i.  Nearly 2400 American servicemen are killed, and nearly the entire US battleship fleet is destroyed.

December 8:  The United States declares war on Japan.

December 11:  Germany declares war on the United States.  The United States responds in kind.

April 12: Ultra-Man disappears during a battle in which he and the Liberty Legion fight Sturmfuhrer and several other Nazi superhumans in Stuttgart, Germany.  Ultra-Man is believed to have been killed in the fighting.

October 9: The first commercial advertising featuring a metahuman is released over the radio.  Featuring well-known Boston crimefighter Lawdog, and running only in that city, the commercial hawked Bukowski's Tavern.  The Tavern's business increased 214% within the next year, all because of Lawdog's commercial.

• The Dachau Concentration Camp is liberated when the guards and staff, still present at the camp, surrender to the American army.
• Reginald Wannsinger discovers that he is the only member of his family to have survived their experiences at Dachau.

March 18: The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), lead by Senator McCarthy issues subpoenas demanding the appearance of all members of the Liberty Legion, past and present, to answer to charges of "Un-American political sentiments".

April 2:  Uncle Sam appears before the HUAC hearing, stoically silent as Senator McCarthy questions his patriotism and dedication to the country, as well as calling into question his "desecration of a sacred American symbol" and his use of the flag motif in his costume.  When McCarthy's rant is over, the star-spangled hero says, simply, "I am so very disappointed in all of you" and exits the building.  Despite the call for guards to arrest the hero, no one even attempts to stop Uncle Sam from leaving.  He is not seen again in public for twenty-five years.

April 4: Appearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee, a visibly shaken Larry "Sergeant Victory" Floyd calls Senators Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon "facist snakes" and challenges both men to fist-fights, despite his wheelchair-bound condition.  Floyd is later found to be in contempt of Congress and sent to prison for three years.

April 7: During his appearance before the HUAC hearing, Mister Mind (who refuses to give his real name) of the Liberty Legion announces that he's had enough of "simplistic questions coming from simplistic men".  He then mentally paralyzes everyone in the hearing room and walks out the door.  A warrant for his arrest is issued, but Mister Mind is never seen again.

April 9: When Airdrop fails to appear before the HUAC hearing, a warrant is issued for his arrest.  No arrest is ever made, and it is suspected that Airdrop simply took the costume off and blended into the general population.

April 10: At the urging of his bosses at Universal Studios, Terry "Mister America" Benedict testifies before the HUAC hearing as a friendly witness.  His testimony is especially damning of Airdrop and Liberty Belle (both of whom flirted with membership in the Communist Party during the Great Depression, but who left that organization shortly thereafter) and Mister Mind (who continued to hold membership in the ACP as of 1951).

April 12: Under a barrage of insulting and harassing questions from Senator McCarthy, a very-pregnant Janine "Liberty Belle" Warren suffers a miscarriage.  She dies of blood loss on the way to the hospital.

June 1: With few exceptions, by this date most publicly operating metahuman crime-fighters have faded into the public rather than face same same fate as the Liberty Legion.

November 7:  Matriq Brelik, an ambassador from Gorilla City, presents his credentials to the Secretary General of the United Nations and requests non-member observer status be granted his homeland.  The revelation that sentient gorillas have existed on earth almost as long as modern humans shocks the world.

March 4: During an Ecumenical Council of the Holy Mother Church, reformers manage to push through the idea that intelligent apes and other sentient species have souls, bringing on harsh debate.  In the end, the Council decrees that artificially intelligent computers and other machines are held to be mechanical creations and thus obviously lacking in souls.

November 7: Nelson Mandela dies of "accidental" injuries acquired in a South African jail shortly after his arrest.

March 5: UN Secretary-General U Thant announces the formation of Checkmate, an international paramilitary force whose mission is to "fight terrorism and the international consequences of metahuman criminal activity".

March 28: U Thant meets with a eight heroes from around the world.  Those heroes (Excalibur of Great Britain, Luz of Brazil, Stalnoivolk of the Soviet Union, Carnaval of France, Rampart of the United States, Jabbar of Iran, Katla of Iceland, and Apollo of Greece) form the initial Global Guardians team.  The team initially operates out of UN Headquarters in New York City.

July 4: The word "mutant" is used for the first time in a news story, describing a person born with their powers.

November 13: The Defenders, the first privately funded and organized hero team, begin operation in Detroit, Michigan.

March 15:

• A near-perfectly preserved corpse of a Neanderthal is found frozen in a glacier in northern Norway.  Scientists call the find "the Nordkapp Man".
• Reginald Wannsinger, having been disillusioned (and almost imprisoned) after taking his plan for saving the world to various corporations and national governments, decides to save the world on his own.  With this in mind, he begins gathering resources.

December 8:  The Nordkapp Man "wakes up" while being examined by a forensic anthropologist.  Scientists eventually teach him Norwegian, and find out that his name is Grak, and the last thing he remembers was migrating with his tribe.

May 9: Stalnoivolk is expelled from the Global Guardians after it is revealed that he has been passing intelligence information to the Soviet government since the team's inception.  He is replaced by Japanese strongman Fuji.

December 1:  Scientists working with Grak, the recently reanimated neanderthal man, discover his powers over ice and cold.

April 28: The United States Congress passes the Non-Human Intelligence Law, recognizing intelligent apes and all alien species proven to possess at least human intelligence as "persons bearing rights that must be recognized by the government".

June 13:  Reginald Wannsinger, now calling himself Lord Doom, begins Project Tomorrow, with the aim of getting him at least one "worthy heir".

October 10:  Anibal Araujo is born in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

November 8:  Kichiro Ito is born in Fukuoka, Japan.

August 12: Jabbar, Lumina, and Katla all announce their retirement from the Global Guardians.  They are replaced by Mindset, Stellarina, and Warhawk.

August 18:  Lord Doom overthrows the government of Bermuda with the assistance of a small army of soldiers armed with very advanced weaponry and a handful of supervillains,

October 9: An amendment to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act is made.  Canadian Shield is made the official national hero team for Canada and the members are commissioned as members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

January 24: Carnaval retires from crimefighting.  The Global Guardians replace her with Belgian superheroine La Charisme.

May 13:  Warin Ebensbach is born in Xanten, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

July 15:  Pawel Radomski is born in Lodz, Poland.

September 16:  Andres Demericot is born in Manila, The Phillipines.

July 13:  Ernst van der Lught marries Susan Swanepoel, his long-time sweetheart.

April 1:  The organgutan who would eventually be called Cyberangutan is born in the jungles surrounding Palembang, Indonesia.

August 18:  Joshua Wilson is born and is immediately turned over to an orphanage for raising.

September 11:  Vittorio Fredi is born in Catania on the Island of Sicily.

October 10: Nimal Karunatilake is born in London.

September 18:  In the middle of a performance, while wearing a lei, a grass skirt, and banging on a ukelele, Bobo the Chimp "wakes up" when his metagene activates, granting him greater-than-human intelligence in an instant.  Later that night, he escapes from the World of Africa roadside zoo and attraction, plotting revenge on all humanity.  He abandons the name "Bobo" and begins calling himself Doctor Simian.

December 15: Jean "Warhawk" D'Alville is arrested for possession of six kilos of heroin.  He is immediately expelled from the Global Guardians, and eventually is sent to prison for fifteen years.  In his place, Apollo recruits Pendragon, the son of former Guardians leader Excalibur.

June 4:  Ernesto Costas is born in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

September 13:  Koos van der Lught is born in Capetown, South Africa.

April 2:  Ernst van der Lught begins his superheroic career as Dogfight.

August 15:  Having recruited nearly a thousand apes from Gorilla City to serve as his army, Doctor Simian begins looking for super-powered apes.  He calls his nascent organization "Prime 8".

April 1:  Alexander Vophang is born in Brownsville, Texas.

May 4:  Dogfight is "invited" to join the Wit Legioen ("White Legion"), South Africa's official team of "superheroes", most of whom are little more than thugs in government pay.  He refuses, and moves his crimefighting underground.

June 15:  Billy Ray Hanson is born in Harlingen, Texas.

January 12:  A capture team employed by Lord Doom rounds up a small troop of orangutans from the Indonesian jungle for use in medical experiments.

January 30:  Ramon Costas is born in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

March 17:  Emily Warden is born in Port Jefferson, New York.

March 21: Portia "Charisma" Bourne resigns from the Global Guardians in disgrace after a British tabloid newspaper reveals her short-lived career as an adult film star in the late 1960s..  Within weeks of the story, sales of her three films skyrocket.

April 1:

• Bernard Kuchieda is born in Caen, France

• Gitte Lilleholt is born in Samso, Denmark.

April 2:  Jeffrey Jones is born in Tucson, Arizona.

April 10: New Jersey issues the first "operators license" to a metahuman dockworker who "works as a heavy equipment operator without the need for heavy equipment."

November 10:  Douglas Naysmith is born in Bristol, England.

March 19:  Fiona Richards designs and constructs her first robot.

May 2:  Rafael Ortega is born in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

October 3:  Marcia Chapman is born in Brownsville, Texas.

October 13:  A group of bodies wash up on the beaches of North Carolina.  They are later identified as a group of terror suspects wanted in Bermuda for questioning regarding an assault on a medical laboratory.

April 12: The United States Supreme Court hands down its decision in Mark "Rasputin" Tomalov vs. South Carolina.  The defendant, a metahuman with the power to heal immense amounts of damage in seconds to minutes (depending on the severity of the injury) and had demonstrated a practical immunity to poisons, had been convicted on three counts of murder and sentenced to death by a South Carolinian court.  His appeal to the Court was based on the premise that, because any method of execution that would actually kill him would be long and agonizing, such a sentence automatically violated 8th Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.  The Supreme Court agreed, staying Tomalov's execution until South Carolina could produce a method of execution that would be both reasonably quick and humane.

May 1:  Pawel Radomski's mother Marjan disappears and is never seen again.

May 2: South Africa invades Cuban controlled Angola, Botswana, Madagascar, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe simultaneously.  The invaded countries band together and fend off South Africa with the help of the a group of mystic warriors until the rest of the world can mobilize.  The Treaty of Lesotho forces South Africa to not only give up land recently invaded, but to also allow West South Africa its independence as Namibia.

June 4:  Brothers Mariquo and Quinto Jafaro are born in Gorilla City.

October 6:  Barbara Keeley is born in San Francisco, California.

January 3:  The infant boy who will eventually be named "David Huntow" by one of his foster mothers is left on the front steps of the Saint Anne Orphanage in Tingwell, Orkney, Scotland.

January 23: "Suicide Squad," debuts on NBC.  Within two months it begins its five year stay at #1 in the Nielsen Ratings.  It is cancelled in 1990.

August 26: Dr. Lincoln Holmes of the Centers For Disease Control discovers the existence of the metagene.

January 28: Lucent Technologies cybernetics lab announced that they had succeeded in creating a functional humanoid robot.

March 15: In Crouch v.  California, the United States Supreme Court holds that the act of putting on a costume, calling oneself by an unusual name, and committing unusual crimes does not automatically mean that a person is insane.

March 21: Project Prometheus AMX-1, the android created by Lucent Technologies, sues its creators to have his rights as a sentient being recognized.  Eventually, the case reached the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in the android's favor.

April 1: Earth is invaded by the Xorn, a predatory warrior species.  The aliens lay waste to several cities around the globe.

June 3:  Pierre Montblanc, now a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, distinguishes himself while fighting against Xorn invaders in the alps.

June 5:  Pierre Montblanc is recruited into the Guardsmen Corps and disappears from Earth.  The French Foreign Legion eventually declared him a casualty of Xorn ambushers.

July 29: In U.S. vs. Kwan (1984), the United States Supreme Court holds that sending a "supernormal", whose powers only come from intense training, to a super-maximum security prison designed to hold metahumans is a violation of the "cruel and unusual" provisions of the 8th amendment to the constitution.

August 16: After three months of intense fighting, the Xorn are driven off by the combined force of the Earth's combined military might, along with the might of nearly every superhuman on earth (including such villains and criminal organizations as Lord Doom, Abyss, and Tarot).  The governments of earth immediately begin examining the technology and alien slaves left behind.

September 15:  Graduate student Fiona Richards publishes "Nanoscopic Robots In Physical Reconstruction of Bodily Tissues as a Means of Fighting Cancer", a treatise detailing the use of nanite robots in reconstructing human cells that have become cancerous.  Alongside the paper, she demonstrates what she calls her "spectrum cure" on a volunteer cancer patient.  The patient is free and clear of her lung cancer within forty-eight hours.

October 2:  Tanya Peters is born in York, England.

October 23: In a hyperwave broadcast made using Xorn equipment to whatever alien species that might be listening, Pendragon, leader of the Global Guardians, issues the Terran Ultimatum.

December 10:  Fiona RIchards is awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine.

June 11:  Kimberly Chase graduates from the University of Nottingham medical school.

August 2:  The Richards Spectrum Cure goes into widespread production.  Eventually, the Cure makes Fiona Richards a multi-billionaire.

September 7: The Rothlyn/Dalburg test, which detects the presence of the metagene, is put into production.

September 13:  Fiona Richards founds the Diamond Corporation.

November 1:  After a career of opposing super-criminals in South Africa, Dogfight is invited to join the Global Guardians.  He accepts.

November 27: An impromptu attempt to overthrow the South African apartheid government by an international team of black metahumans fails.  The slaughter of the invading metahumans by South African forces (including Purity, South Africa's government-sponsored hero team) shock the world.

August 1:  William Shiyu Yuan becomes dragon head of the Wing Chao tong in San Francisco.

July 13:  The Costas family leaves Matamoros, sneaking into the United States illegally.  They eventually take up residence in San Bonita, a suburb of Brownsville.

June 8: In U.S. vs. Kwan (1986), the United States Supreme Court holds that a supernormal can be incarcerated in a super-maximum security prison designed to hold metahumans when "that supernormal has proven himself to be so adept at escape that it is unlikely a normal prison facility could ever contain him for long."

August 30:  Project Longsword, a secret program intended to develop an artificial super-soldier for the Russian government, is begun at a secret laboratory in Maloyaroslavets, Russia.

January 8:  Bojangles discovers his sonic powers and begins to use them to survive.

January 13:  Tanya Peters's father James leaves her mother for a younger woman.  Alexandra Peters becomes bitter and hateful toward men, and begins teaching her daughter to hold the opposite sex in contempt.

February 9:  Alex Quillion, a cancer patient from New Orleans, Louisiana, brings a lawsuit against the Diamond Corporation when the Richards Spectrum Cure fails to cure his leukemia.  The case is eventually settled out of court, but it brings to light the fact that while the Spectrum Cure is effective against almost 90% of all types of cancer, some cancers (namely leukemia and cancers of the lymph nodes and bone marrow) are not affected by the Spectrum Cure at all.

March 13:  Kichiro Ito's parents are killed in a bus accident.  He is forced to leave the University and take custody of his baby sister.

May 23: Brianna Mae Siegert is born in Rochester, Michigan.

June 2:  Kichiro Ito joins the Tokyo Police Department.

September 18: A team of doctors at Crestwick Hospital in York, England, assisted by research previously performed by Lord Doom, perfect an HIV (AIDS) vaccine that not only kills the virus in an infected individual, but also prevents uninfected individuals from ever being infected.

April 12:  Semeru is born in the jungles of Borneo.

April 20: To the shock and amazement of the outside world, the armed forces of Gorilla City smash several company-sized units of Rwandan militia in response to attacks on small villages near the hidden ape city.

May 11:  Deborah "Debbie" Yuan is born in San Francisco, California.

June 8:  Bojangles joins Prime 8, taking the name "Howler".

August 5:  Bambi Takahana is born in Los Angeles, California.

August 6:  Spider joins Prime 8 after Doctor Simian cures him of premature aging syndrome.

October 25:  Warin Ebensbach is sentenced to life imprisonment after many violent years of criminal activity.

April 2: Metallurgy, a member of Majestic and perhaps the most popular superhero in England, is diagnosed with a fatal blood illness.  A team of experts, including Dr. Kimberly Chase, are called in to search for a cure.

May 8:  Ernesto and Ramon Costas meet Alex Vophang for the first time.  They eventually become the closest of friends.

June 30:  The central mainframe at Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Palo Alto, California receives a coded signal from an unknown source that takes over the computer's systems and begins construction of the Omega Robot.

May 22: "Meta" magazine publishes an interview with Lord Doom.  This interview, conducted over the internet, reveals that Lord Doom is a fan of Stephen King novels, James Bond films, the music of Queen, Tony's Circuit, and Garth Brooks, and that his favorite food is veal marsala.

June: 10:  Pawel Radomski graduates from the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, in Germany, with a degree in Engineering.

July 8:  In reaction to being bullied at her school, Emily Warden's power to manipulate fear in other people manifest for the first time.

July 9:  The Diamond Corporation begins production on a flexible "flat screen" computer keyboard that can be rolled up like a placemat and carried, thus ending the era of "tiny keyboards" on laptops and other devices.

November 2: 

• Despite the best efforts of the scientists trying to cure him, Metallurgy dies of his illness.
• Members of Purity attack the annual conference of the Organization For African Unity in Kampala, Uganda.  They are driven off by a loose coalition of African superheroes.

February 8:  Kimberly Chase injects herself with a serum made from a sample of Metallurgy's blood, causing systematic mutations throughout her body.  The pain of her transformation from flash to living metal drives her mad, and she rampages through London.  When she is finally caught, she is lambasted in the press for "desecrating the memory of a beloved hero".

February 10:  Kimberly Chase, now calling herself "Alloy", escapes from jail and goes underground.

June 4:  Anibal Araujo graduates from the medical school at Federal University of Goias.  Shortly thereafter she begins working as an epidemiologist for the Brazilian government.

June 8:  Vittorio Fredi graduates from the University of Applied Science in Austria with a doctorate in geology.  Shortly thereafter he joins Lord Doom's scientific staff as a researcher.

June 29: An autographed copy of the Hero System Rules write-up for Lord Doom, including penciled in corrections, is auctioned on eBay for $2800.

August 17:  While working at a leprosy hospice in Nicaragua, Anibal Araujo has a confrontation with a squad of corrupt soldiers, who are stealing medicines an other supplies from the hospice.  When the soldiers return shortly thereafter, intent on killing her, they are stopped by Reginald Wannsinger (Lord Doom).  After her rescue, Anibal begins a whirlwind romance with the supervillain.

April 12: Ultra-Man re-appears in modern day Stuttgart, having been thrown 50 years in the future by one of Ulysses Maltus' superweapons.  The hero makes his way to America and begins acclimating to the present.

May 10:  Diamond Technologies begins commercial production of the Traveler, a voice-activated personal microcomputer that is worn like a pair of glasses (the computer's screen is projected onto the inside of one of the glasses lenses).  In addition to having 64 megabytes of memory and 16 metabytes of RAM, the Traveler also functions pretty well as a pair of sunglasses.

May 28:  While surveying the slopes of Mount Aetna for the perfect place to locate a geothermal power tap, Vittorio Fredi is caught a landslide created by an unexpected eruption of the volcano.  His latent metagene reacts with the environment, granting him control over the Earth.  Fredi accepts a position in Lord Doom's personal guard, taking the name Mongibello (the name by which Italians refer to Mount Aetna).

August 20:  Anibal Araujo breaks off her love-affair with Reginald Wannsinger in order to concentrate more on her work as a doctor.  Wannsinger understands, but tells her that she will always have a place by his side.

October 4:  Pawel Radomski stumbles across evidence of his father's connection to the Russian mob, as well as the depth of his father's involvement in human trafficking.  Investigating deeper, he discovers evidence that his mother was murdered by his father.

November 16:  The Dreamers, a loose-knit team of young superheroes out of San Francisco, California are confronted by Omega in the robot's first public opinion.  None of the heroes survive.

January 11:  Andres Demericot enters the doctoral program at De La Salle University in Manila.  To help defray costs, he becomes a research assistant in the toxicology lab.

August 22: For forty- eight hours across the evening sky around the world a short manifesto written in blue/white light proclaims both laws of U'tua the Gardner and the arrival of Sol's Guardsmen who will be enforcing those laws.  The existance of the Guardsmen is confirmed by the Tautiq and the surviving Xorn slave species.  That the laws provide only for the survival of sentient species but not their freedom, explains in part why the Xorn tried to turn Earth into a slave planet.

August 24: Sol's new Guardsman appears before the UN and in the General Assembly lays out Galatic Law as established by U'tua the Gardner and the consequences for defying those laws.  The Peoples Republic of China representative walks out decrying this as merely another western trick, as Guardsman identified himself as the former French solider Pierre Mountblanc.

January 5:  After almost a year of preparation, Pawel Radomski takes on a costumed persona.  Calling himself "Bullseye" and utilizing gadgets and weapons of his own invention, he begins his crusade against the Russian mob and its human trafficking operations.

February 9:  Gitte Lilleholt falls ill with an unknown disease.  She is unconscious for nearly a month, after which she awakes with "bunny powers" and an altered appearance.

March 15: After India announces plans to launch a campaign to wipe out several hundred thousand acres of marshland in the name of progress Guardsman makes a public announcement that this plan is in violation of Galactic Law and a three day interdiction of India from the rest of the world will take place.  A solid dome blocking all traffic from leaving or entering India seals that nation off from outside contact for three days, not even the most powerful superhumans are able to penetrate the shield.  The Indian government barely manages to survive the crisis and backs off it plans for the marshland.  Governments around the world take notice and even the most corrupt and tyrannical at least pretend to play by the rules.

May 25:  Calling herself "Silver Marten", Gitte Lilleholt forces herself into the strong-room of a harness-racing track near Oslo.  She makes off with nearly a hundred thousand krone and leaves at least three people in critical condition.

May 28:  Marcia Chapman meets Alex Vophang and his friends for the first time.

February 18:  While on a tour of the Cargill Corporation's main pharmaceutical plant in Buenos Aires, Anibal Araujo and other visitors, along with the plant's facility and staff, are attacked by members of Anarchy.  During the confrontation, Araujo is exposed to a radioactive gas that triggers her latent metagene and grants her superhuman powers.  She uses the new powers to escape her attackers.

March 11:  Alloy accepts an offer of permanent employment from Lord Doom.

May 10:  Agents of TAROT invade the Project Longsword base, intent on stealing what technology they can and wrecking the wrest.  During the fighting between TAROT swords and Russian security forces, the artificial being called "Virus" is freed from containment and escapes.

August 20:  Joshua Wilson enters the Virginia Military Institute as a student.

August 24:  After months of soul-searching, Anibal Araujo returns to Lord Doom in order to assist his plan to improve life on Earth.  She takes the name "Embrace".

December 8:  Andres Demericot is shot by an irate co-worker.  His metagene activates, turning him into a super-strong, regenerating lizard man.  Taking the name Anole, he immediately embarks on a robbery and murder spree, beginning with the slaughter of the man who shot him, and his family.

March 15: Carlos Verdecia joins the Provencial Police over the objections of his father, who thinks Carlos is destined for greater things.  Carlos begins his career as "Los Hermanos", the protector of Paravelos, Costa Rica.  He simultaneously joins the Costa Rican navy, enters a seminary to become a priest, and begins medical school.

March 16:  Warin Ebensbach is released from prison and discovers that not only has he been the subject of an experiment meant to increase his strength, reaction time, and other factors, but that the man who ordered the experiment is Reginald Winssinger, better known as Lord Doom.  Warin rejects his father's offer of employment and training and disappears.

April 10:  Grak assists the Dutch superhero Shriek in fighting off the Young Gods.

April 15:  London police arrest Douglas Naysmith for the first time on a charge of pickpocketing and suspicion for a dozen other crimes.

August 9:  Monkeyshines is recruited by Prime 8.

August 10:  Glynnis Loughran learns that her father is Lord Doom, and gladly joins his crusade to save the world.  She takes the name "Brigit", and begins training herself with the sword.

June 2:  Grak joins EuroShield as "Nordkapp Man".

August 29:  Omega clashes with TAROT forces in Prague, destroying two buildings and killing nearly three hundred people.

April 12:  Warin Ebensbach, now calling himself Siegfried and working as a mercenary supervillain, assassinates Piter Purgly, the Hungarian Minister of Finance.

June 7: Joshua Wilson graduates from the Virginia Military Institute at the top of his class.  Shortly thereafter, he enters the US Marine Corps as a Second Lieutenant.

September 9: After several years of modern-day heroics, Ultra-Man is invited to join the Global Guardians.

October 10:  Detective Kichiro Ito meets Doctor Toda Kimio, one of the most noted entomologists in Japan.  The two begin dating shortly thereafter.

October 24:  The United Nations recognizes Gorilla City as a separate and independent state within Africa.  Gorilla City starts campaigning to have Tachyon join the Global Guardians.

April 7:  During an argument with her father over whether the very existence of metahumans was a threat to "normal humans", Emily Warden reveals that she, herself, has superpowers.  Shortly thereafter she flees her father's house in despair.  She ends up in Manhattan, homeless.

June 6:  Rafael Ortega gains super-speed powers through a series of unlikely events that end with him being poisoned, insect-bitten, and electroshocked.  Shortly thereafter he flees the sheep ranch he was raised on to become the supervillain known as Velocity.

September 9: Lord Doom, finding himself in need of a follower who possesses no scruples regarding violence and killing, offers Anole a position in his organization.  Anole accepts.

• A collection of black basalt monoliths 9 feet tall by 4 feet wide by 1 foot thick appears suddenly overnight in parks in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chattanooga, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.  An investigation into the monoliths reveal them to be simple stone rectangles, and other than their sudden (and apparently simultaneous) appearance across the United States, nothing unusual about them is ever discovered.  The monoliths are removed by municipal workers in Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington DC, but are allowed to remain standing in the other cities.
• Actor Ray Walston dies of Lupus at age 86.
• After single-handedly shutting down three Mafia families in Boston, Baltimore, and New York City, Achilles is invited to join the Global Guardians.

January 14: Tachyon is invited to join the Global Guardians.

April 10:  Longshot is nearly captured by members of Russian Dawn after assassinating popular Russian businessman-politician Gennaday Malakhov.  The vigilante leaves behind convincing proof that Malakhov was heavily involved in the Russian mob.

May 2:  Athena returns Arachne to human form.  Citing a need for a champion among humanity, Athena gifts the girl with special powers and charges her to defend her fellow man against those who would pray on them.  She assumes the secret identity "Olivia Christakos" and begins her career as a superhero.

May 11:  Author Douglas Adams dies of a heart attack at age 49.

August 4:  Jeffrey Jones becomes a fighter pilot for the United States Air Force.

August 30:  Nimal Karunatilake is sprayed with Diamondback's venom when the Serpent Syndicate attempts to rob a Barclay's branch in London.

September 5:  Nimal Karunatilake is reported missing to the London police by his friends and co-workers at the London Museum.

September 11:  American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 crash into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers and American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon.  A third plane, United Airlines Flight 93, is also hijacked, but is prevented from reaching its goal because of a passenger revolt against the highjackers.  Nearly 1600 people lose their lives in the attacks (and the subsequent building collapses), despite the efforts of the Global Guardians (in New York City) and the Liberty League (in Washington DC).  Among the casualties are one superhero and one supervillain (Dogfight, one of the Global Guardians, and Hardcase, a mercenary strongman with a long list of outstanding warrants); both were killed by falling debris mere seconds after teaming up to rescue the last two fire-fighters saved from the building.

September 13:  Koos van der Lught is informed of his father's death in the September 11 disaster.  He rejects all offers of sympathy and swears revenge on the Global Guardians

September 14: The senior leadership of al-Queda is pulled from a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan by a volunteer team of heroes (made up of members of the Global Guardians, the Liberty League, the New York Knights, Majestic, and EuroShield) under the auspices of the U.S. Defense Department.  Osama bin-Ladin, the leader of al-Queda, commits suicide rather than being captured.  The remaining prisoners are transported to New York City for trial.

September 25:  While on her second mission as a member of EuroShield, Eternity is murdered by the superhuman criminal known as the Silver Marten..

September 30:  Marvin "Hardcase" Gorte receives a posthumous pardon from President Al Gore.

October 22: Members of Purity, now officially declared a terrorist group by most nations, assassinate the presidents of Zimbabwe and Zambia after talks of a military coalition between the two nations to depose South African apartheid government near fruition.  Both countries reintegrate back into Rhodesia and form a new independent democratic state despite the twin tragedies.

November 1:

• Tanya Peters is featured on the cover of Bridal Monthly, modeling wedding gowns.

• Alexander Vophang, Marcia Chapman, Ernesto and Ramon Costas, and Billy Ray Hanson break into a laboratory they think is merely a drug lab.  The lab is actually a part of the US Army's continual super-soldier program.  During their escape under heavy fire from the guards, all five are exposed to a mutagenic gas.

March 16:  Krait completes his first assignment as a hired assassin, murdering John Edger, the CEO of Lombardi Industries in Genoa.

April 8:  At the age of 13, Brianna Mae Siegert becomes the youngest member of the Great Lakes Gladiators, calling herself "Bungie".

July 9:  Virus takes over a small village in southern Sri Lanka, and threatens to spread his infection to the rest of the island.  He is opposed by Guardsman, who succeeds in containing the artificial being long enough for the villagers to be rescued.  Virus is taken to Stronghold prison and imprisoned in a cold-sleep tube.

August 9:  Alexander "Assault" Vophang and Marcia "Battery" Chapman see the new Vin Diesel film xXx on its opening night.  Both agree that the villains were cooler than the hero.  Marcia suggests they name their "super-team" after the villains in the film, "Anarchy 99".  Alex likes the idea, but insists they drop the "99" part.

August 10:  The Costas brothers (Diablo and Razor) and Billy Ray Hanson (Stomp) all agree that "Anarchy" would make a cool name for their group.

September 11:  Just as Koos van der Lught is about to launch his first "vengeance strike" on the Global Guardians, he encounters Lord Doom, who convinces him that his path of vengeance would be easier to walk with the resources available to the criminal mastermind.  Koos agrees, and joins Doom's personal guard as Slipstream.

November 28:  Marcia Deladrier, one of Emily Warden's companions and "squatting partners", comes down with pneumonia.

December 4:  In order to afford medicines needed by her friend, Emily Warden, wearing a makeshift costume and calling herself Phobia, successfully robs the Bank of Manhattan, despite the intercession of DynaMan, a member of the New York Knights.  She is too late, however, and Marcia Deladrier dies of pneumonia anyway.

January 19:  Omega detonates a low-yield nuclear weapon in Yongbyon, North Korea, the site of that country's super-soldier program.

February 13: In a rigged craps game, Douglas Naysmith is able to steal nearly £50,000 from a gangster working for crime-boss Nigel Greene.  Word gets out and Naysmith finds himself hunted.

February 17:  Thugs in the employ of Nigel Greene corner Douglas Naysmith in a bar.  The stress of the situation (plus Naysmith's fear of getting beat up or worse)  trigger's Douglas Naysmith's latent mutation, giving him superhuman powers.

March 17:  Lieutenant Jeffrey Jones leaves the Air Force and becomes a test pilot for Diamond Industries' Special Weapons division.

April 1:

• All seven members of Team Victory, a superhero team operating out of Melbourne Australia, as well as two known supervillain and six previously unknown metahumans living in the area are suddenly transported into a low orbit of the Earth and die of explosive decompression from vacuum exposure.  No cause for the tragedy is ever discovered.

• Douglas Naysmith, now calling himself Speed Demon, embarks on his career as a supervillain by robbing an illegal "underground" casino run by Nigel Greene.

April 10:

• Agents of Bushido, whose operations the hero has been slowly dismantling over the last year, discover Koorogi's secret identity.  A contract is immediately put on Kichiro Ito's head.
• Prime 8 successfully raids a Rwandan chemical factory.  Their exact goal is unknown, as the villainous apes burn the place to the ground.

April 13:  Silverback joins Prime 8.

April 14:  Nine members of the Red Shadows, a Tokyo street gang affiliated with Bushido, ambush Kichiro Ito and Toda Kimio while the romantic couple are strolling through a park.  Though Kichiro defeats all of the attackers, Kimio is fatally shot.  In a rage, Kichiro uses his powers as Kirogi to execute several of the unconscious thugs before police officers arrive and drive him off.

April 19:  Lord Doom finds Kichiro Ito, who is wallowing in guilt despite being cleared by the police for the deaths of the gang members, and offers Kichiro a place in his organization.  Looking for a new start, Kichiro accepts.

May 14:  Joshua Wilson learns that his father is Reginald Winnsinger, the criminal overlord better known as Lord Doom, and that his own life has been a carefully orchestrated plan to create the perfect soldier.  Rather than submit to his father's will, Wilson decides to strike out on his own and become the superhero known as Achilles.

August 5:  At age 13, Debbie Yuan displays her superhuman strength for the first time by lifting her parent's car above her head in order to retrieve a toy that had rolled under the vehicle.

October 11: The New York times best seller list is topped by books about superhumans for 46 straight weeks, finally ending this day when "Sunflowers" by romance novelist Augusta Day makes it to #5.

November 12: Under intense international pressure, South Africa disbands Purity as a paramilitary force and ceases creation of super soldiers to restock its White Legion.  Soon after, the remaining members of the White Legion gruesomely slaughter two hundred black villagers near Suwheto in a mass execution.

December 9:  Jeffrey Jones puts on Diamond Technologies Exosuit Prototype C-224-A for the first time, and his life is changed forever.

January 7: A volcanic eruption to the north of New Zealand results in the creation of a small, rocky island, that just barely juts out of the water.

January 21: The premiere episode of the third season of SuperReality earns the highest single-episode ratings of any television show in the last five years.  The show, a reality genre show on MTV, features B- and C-List superheroes and now-retired and gone-straight B- and C-List supervillains sharing a Malibu beach house for the summer.  While the previous seasons featured heroes and villains that, while known, were never considered "major league", the third season starred Longshot, a former Global Guardian.

February 2:  Police attempt to arrest Tanya Peters for Receipt of Stolen Property and Conspiracy to Commit after she talks the manager of a jewelry store in Manhattan to give her every item in one display case (a haul totaling almost half a million dollars in value).  For no explainable reason they could give later, the arresting officers not only fail to detain her, but drive her to the airport so she can leave New York City.

March 8: Paul Taglibue, Comissioner of the American National Football League, announces that the NFL will be merging with the World Football League and the Canadian Football League, adding the following teams to the League: Amsterdam Admirals, Berlin Thunder, Frankfurt Galaxy, London Monarchs, Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Toronto Argonauts.  The newly renamed International American Football League will be made up of four conferences, with an inter-conference championship (the Superbowl) being held every year.

March 12:  Los Hermanos is invited to join the Global Guardians.

March 13:  Velocity is arrested by members of the Denver Defenders and sent to prison for the first time.

May 1:  Gunmetal makes his first appearance as a superhero, operating with the full support of Diamond Industries.

May 18:  Emily Warden attempts to mug two men in Manhattan.  The men attack her in self-defense and render her unconscious.  When she comes to, she is informed that she had just attacked Lord Doom and one of his bodyguards... and then she's offered a position in his organization.  She accepts, taking the name Phobia.

July 1: The orbital shuttle Australia breaks up upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere, killing all five members of the crew.

August 8:  Velocity escapes from prison.  He is recaptured a mere thirty-eight hours later.

August 14:  After several favors were called in by Andrea Seville, President and CEO of Diamond Industries, Gunmetal is invited to join the Global Guardians.

August 18: The life of Simon Sandoval, President of Bolivia, is saved when an assassin's bullet strikes a Security Duplicate Robot instead.  The robot, programmed simply to smile and wave at crowds, was riding in the president's official limousine while the actual president rode in a car behind it.  A spokesman for Diamond Industries, designer and builder of the SDR, stated that "this is the first occasion where one of our robots in the field actually performed the task for which it was designed", sparking wide speculation among the media as to just how many SDR's were out there in use.  Diamond Industries declined to provide specific information, but did admit that the robots were very popular with world leaders, corporate CEOs, and even certain celebrities.

November 4: Governor George W. Bush (R-Tex) defeats incumbent President Bob Graham in the closest presidential race in U.S. history.  Charges of electronic vote tampering, fraud, and criminal malfeasance on the part of the Republican Party are never investigated.

November 12:  Grace Bachelet discovers one of Omega's secret bases and sneaks inside, wanting to get special insight on the advanced technology the robot supervillain uses.  She accidentally activates both the organic repair systems and Omega's own auto-repair systems.  She staggers out of the base hours later, a changed person.

November 16:  Grace Bachelet, now calling herself La Constructeuse, levels a secret Swiss medical facility that treats the victims of science gone amok.

December 9:  Bernard Kuchieda is named the Premiere dancer at the Palace ballet.

April 6:  Barbara Keeley becomes the youngest Vice President of Production in the history of 20th Century Fox.

April 13:  Omega and La Constructeuse fight in the skies over Prague.  The battle ends when La Constructeuse abruptly shuts the Omega robot down and flees the scene.  The Czech government seizes the deactivated Omega for study.

June 9:  Bernard Kuchieda's performance in Le Spectre de la Rose receives such rave reviews that people begin to consider him the next Nijinsky.

July 11:  A Czech scientist studying the inert form of Omega manages to accidentally reactivate the villain.  Omega causes massive damage to the laboratory building, but still manages to escape without killing a single human being.

August 9:  Krait is captured by French authorities after the assassin successfully murders actress Sophie Marceau.  His fingerprints are processed, revealing that he is the missing Nimal Karunatilake from London, England.  Krait escapes shortly thereafter.

September 12:  Diamond Electronics releases the Carat, an ear-mounted portable media player the size of a raisin and designed to be worn in a similar manner to a clip-on earring.

December 6:  Achilles encounters Sigfried for the first time when the latter attempts to hijack a payroll-laden armored car in Baltimore.  The two brothers instinctively recognize each other for who they are.  They fight for hours, with neither gaining the upper-hand.  Eventually, the number of swiftly arriving police backup forces Sigfried to retreat.

February 5:  The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 to win Superbowl XL.

February 6:  Stephen Harper becomes Prime Minister of Canada.

February 10:  The Winter Olympics begin in Turin, Italy.

February 13:  Actor Andreas Katsulas dies of lung cancer at the age of 60.

March 5:  The Jester attempts to capture an art thief during a fundraiser thrown by billionaire industrialist Lexington Cargill for Senator John Ward of New York.  Several people are injured before Cargill's private security forces drive off the vigilante and catch the thief.  The thief's target, the $147 million dollar classic Renoir painting Bal du moulin de la Galette, is destroyed in the skirmish.

June 21: After several years of enforcing Galactic Law and stopping Earthly criminals Guardsman is invited to join the Global Guardians in a bid to bolster its abilities to handle extra solar threats.

August 5:  Virus escapes from Stronghold Orbital Prison by infecting a guard and abandoning his original body, which dies in its holding tube.  The android returns to Earth on the next shuttle.

August 14:  While sitting in his cell in Stronghold, Velocity decides to form a supervillain team after his release.

September 3:  Arachne is invited to join the Global Guardians.

September 6:  Velocity is once again imprisoned.  This time he is sent to Stronghold Orbital Prison, where he decided to found a supervillain team.

October 30: 

• Los Angeles, California, is hit by a magnitude 5.6 earthquake.
• In an attempt to restore lights to her private office, Barbara Keeley electrocutes herself.  Rather than dying, she gains superhuman powers.

December 4:  Ribald almost succeeds in evaporating the Great Lakes.  His scheme is defeated by the Global Guardians, with the able assistance of Bungie.

December 11:  Barbara Keeley, now calling herself "Quick", steals nearly three hundred thousand dollars from an armored truck in Los Angeles, while the truck is driving at high speed down I-15.

March 6:  Silver Marten steals thirty thousand dollars in uncut sapphires from a gemstone store house in Bonn.

April 4:  The Jafaro brothers leave Gorilla City just ahead of an order to have them banished.

April 11:  The Cheerleaders rob a Seven-Eleven, beginning their lives as super-villains.

April 13:  Velocity is released from prison and begins looking for likely candidates for his supervillain team.

May 6:  Kong and Brass Monkey are recruited into Prime 8.

May 9:  Velocity encounters Speed Demon in London and recruits him into the Prime Movers.

May 14:  Dancer Bernard Kuchieda is found in bed with a 14 year old boy.  He's arrested by French police and is generally disgraced in the eyes of the public.

May 18:  After being released on bond to await his trial, Bernard Kuchieda attempts to kill himself by overdosing on cocaine.  Instead of dying, he awakens 24 hours later with super-powers.

July 13:  Nemesis confronts Arachne for the first time.  The battle goes against the heroine until her teammates, the Global Guardians, arrive to help.

September 6:  Semeru discovers his powers and begins to call himself Elastorang.

October 1:  Quick joins the Prime Movers.

November 4:  In New York City, Arachne clashes with the Jester over the latter's lack of care when it comes to collateral damage.  The fight between the two destroys three privately owned automobiles and the front window of a delicatessen.

December 28:  Diamond Medical develops a nerve-induction surface contact for prosthetic limbs that allows better and more delicate control of the limb.

March 13:  Elastorang is recruited by Prime 8.

July 7: Achilles is chosen to lead the Guardians after the previous leader, Ballistic, retires from crime-fighting.

May 18:  Debbie Yuan finds out about her father's leadership position in the Wing Chao tong, and flees her home.

November 8:  Senator Barack Obama is elected President of the United States, defeating the vastly unpopular George W. Bush.  Obama is the first American president of African descent, and the eleventh president of Irish descent.

January 14:  Mexican-born American actor Ricardo Montalban dies of congestive heart failure at age 88.

January 15:  US Airways Flight 1549 lands in the Hudson River six minutes after departure from LaGuardia Airport.  Investigators discover that the aircraft lost thrust in both engines after Canada geese were sucked through both almost simultaneously.  All 155 passengers survive the ordeal.

February 7:  The deadliest brush-fires in Australian history begin on this date.  Fire-fighters and superheroes from around the world gather to assist the Australian effort in protecting the public.  By the time the fires are extinguished, 173 people are dead, nearly 500 more injured, and almost 7500 people are left homeless.

March 9:  Diamond Medical announces the implantation of the first working cybernetic limb priced for public release.  Previous cybernetic replacements have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the new design has a production cost of only eighteen thousand dollars.

April 8:  Debbie Yuan joins Lord Doom's personal guard as Lotus.

April 21:  UNESCO launches the World Digital Library.

June 25:  Pop superstar Michael Jackson suffers cardiac arrest brought on by an accidental overdose and dies at age 50.

July 17:  American newscaster Walter Cronkite dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 92.