Timeline of Important History (GURPS Troubleshooters)

GURPS Troubleshooters takes place in an Alternate Earth setting (as if the actual presence of supernatural creatures wasn't a clue). Most of what we know of history remains true in 1951. Significant deviations from known history include:

• Tesla invents radio and launches global broadcasting about 20 years earlier than known history. Tesla does not die impoverished and forgotten in 1943 but instead leaves behind a vast fortune and significant scientific legacy.
• Dirigible airships experience a resurgence after WWII and are commonly used for luxury overseas travel, sort of an airborne cruise liner.

1894

• Nikola Tesla secures the patent for the radio transmitter and receiver.

1897

• Westinghouse Company begins marketing "diathermic treatments" for a variety of medical conditions.

1900

• Count Von Zeppelin invents the dirigible airship.

1902

• Wardenclyffe Tower is built on Long Island. The Morgan-Tesla Radio Company is formed, with Tesla as CEO and Anne Morgan leading the board of directors, and begins global radio broadcasts in March.

1904

• The New York Subway opens its first line, an electric train running from City Hall to 145th Street.

1909

• Tesla receives the Nobel Prize for the invention of radio.

1914

• The Great War begins in Europe.

1917

• Thule Society founded in Munich, Germany.
• United States enters European war when Congress declares war on Germany in response to numerous submarine attacks.
• Russian Revolution begins.

1918

• World War I ends with the signing of the Armistice with Germany.

1920

• Los Angeles Railway opens its first underground lines downtown.

1921

• Jacques d'Arsonvale is awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the use of Tesla's diathermic radiation to treat tumors.

1922

• Ulysses, by James Joyce, is published in Paris by Sylvia Beach.
• In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter discovers Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

1923

• The Rosewood Massacre begins on January 1 and ends six days later when the town is burned to the ground.
• In Lakehurst, New Jersey, the first American airship, the USS Shenandoah, is launched.

1924

• Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin dies in Russia, leaving Joseph Stalin as acting premier.

1925

• Adolf Hitler's manifesto Mein Kampf is published in Germany.

1927

• Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party by Stalin and forced to flee the USSR.

1929

• The Great Depression begins with the Wall Street crash on October 29.

1931

• Japan invades Manchuria.

1932

• The Soviet Famine begins and last for over a year, resulting in the deaths of millions.
• The Kingdom of Iraq gains its independence from the British.
• The Japanese Empire attacks Shanghai, China.
• Paul von Hindenburg is re-elected president of Germany, defeating Hitler in a runoff election.

1933

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated President of the Untied States.
• Unable to form a stable coalition government, von Hindenburg appoints Hitler Chancellor of Germany.
• The Reichstag Fire is set on February 27 in Berlin. The Nazi-led government responds with decrees that nullify the majority of german civil liberties and established the Gestapo, a secret state police force.
• Nazi Party becomes the official state party of Germany.
• Albert Einstein flees germany and settles in the United States.

1934

• The SS becomes an independent organization, reporting directly to Hitler.
• Upon the death of von Hindenburg, Hitler becomes Head of State as well as Chancellor of Germany, and names himself Führer.

1935

• The Nuremberg Laws are enacted in Germany.
• Italy invades Ethiopia.

1936

• The Great Purge begins in Soviet Union as Stalin attempts to eliminate all opposition, real or imagined, within his government.
• Civil war begins in Spain.

1937

• Japanese Army wins the Battle of Nanking and commences what will later become known as the Rape of Nanking.

1938

• Germany "incorporates" Austria.
• European nations agree to annexation of Czech Sudetenland in an attempt appease hitler.

1939

• Physicists split a uranium atom at Columbia University.
• Spanish Civil War ends with Nationalist victory. Spain becomes dictatorship led by Francisco Franco.
• Germany invades Poland.

1940

• Leon Trotsky is assassinated in Mexico City.

1941

• US enters World War II in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor Naval base in Hawaii.

1943

• Nikola Tesla dies in New York.

1945

• President Roosevelt dies suddenly in April, and Harry Truman becomes President.
• Hitler commits suicide.
• The war comes to a complete end with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.