Pre-1940s

13th century
The Chinese utilize an arrow-like device that expels gunpowder when launched, becoming the first usage of rockets in recorded history.

1220s
1223: Mongol Invasion of Europe. The Mongols improve upon the earlier design of the Chinese weapons and use them frequently during the invasion.

15th century
1498-1504: Fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus. Columbus discovers Costa Rica around the point that Limon now stands.

1765
American Patriots living in Boston form the "Sons of Liberty."

1773
The Sons of Liberty instigate the Boston Tea Party in protest of the British Crown's excessive taxation of its American colonies.

1789
April 30: George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the United States of America in a ceremony at Federal Hall.

1800s
1804: The Congreve rocket is developed by the British.

1805: The Battle of Trafalgar. Admiral Horatio Nelson leads British forces to victory, though he is fatally wounded during the battle.

1810s
1812-1815: The War of 1812.

August 24-25, 1814: The Burning of Washington. Washington, D.C. is invaded by British forces and burned to the ground as well as fired at by cannons. The American Flag reportedly survives, which leads to the creation of the National Anthem. The British during this time also used a newly-developed weapons system known as the Congreve rocket, of which its usage during the Burning of Washington was also referenced in the verse "the Rocket's red glare" of the National Anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.

1830s
March 10, 1831: The French Foreign Legion is created.

1850s
October 13, 1856: United States mercenary William Walker seizes power in Nicaragua. Initially hired by the Nicaraguan Democratic Party to help counter the Conservative Party, Walker exploits rivalries between the two, eventually making himself president. He makes English an official language and tries to reintroduce slavery in order to build a "Caribbean Empire" centered on the American South.

May 1, 1857: A united Central American army led by Costa Rica expels William Walker from Nicaragua.

1860s
The End is born.

1880s
Code Talker is born.

190X
Old Boy is born.

1909
August 12th: David Oh (Zero/Cipher) is born.

The first British intelligence outfit, the SIS, is created. The head of the foreign intelligence division is Mansfield George Smith Cumming.

1912
August: United States Marines occupy Nicaragua and pacify the populace, ostensibly to quell political unrest in the country. But the real reason was to intimidate the government and thwart the construction of the Nicaraguan Canal, due to the Panama Canal's creation. The only reason the U.S. government leased the Canal to Nicaragua was to prevent anyone else from building in there.

1914
July 28: Beginning of the First World War.

1917
November 7: October Revolution occurs in Russia. Bolsheviks seize power as the Russian Provisional Government is overthrown. The Russian Civil War begins.

1918
November 11: End of the First World War.

October 21: The Russian Bolsheviks form the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate).

1919
The predecessor of the KGB, the Cheka, infiltrates the GRU. This plants the seed for a fierce rivalry between the two agencies.

1922
October 25: Russian Civil War ends with a Bolshevik victory. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is born.

The Philosophers are founded. The secret organization originates from a treaty formed at a clandestine gathering of authority figures from America, post-revolutionary Russia, and China, which would later be known as the Wisemen's Committee.

The Boss (The Joy) is born as daughter to a member of the Philosophers.

1927
August 23: Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed in the electric chair. The two were convicted of murdering two men during the armed robbery of a shoe factory in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States in 1920. It is believed by some that the two men were wrongfully executed but they were never officially exonerated.

193X
The last original member of the Philosophers' dies. Afterwards, the organization begins to run out of control and the Wisemen's Committee degenerates into a mere shell of its former self.

1933
January: General Augusto Calderón Sandino drives U.S. Marines out of Nicaragua.

January 30: Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany. The Third Reich (Nazi Germany) is established.

1935
John (Jack/Naked Snake/Big Boss) is born.

1936
May 15: EVA (Tatyana/Tanya/Big Mama) is born in Meridian, Idaho, USA. During childhood, she is taken from her family by the Philosophers and placed in a joint U.S.-Soviet-Chinese facility to be trained as a spy, similar to other children from across the world.

June 22: Dr. Clark (Para-Medic/Quack) is born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

1937
January 1: Anastasio Somoza Garcia comes to power in Nicaragua.

1938
The Mitsubishi J2M "Raiden" fighter plane is built in Japan.

1939
August: Albert Einstein writes a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt advising work on the atomic bomb, in response to Germany's own research.

September 1: Nazi Germany invades Poland.

September 3: The United Kingdom and France declare war on Germany. World War II begins.

November 11: Donald Anderson (Sigint/DARPA Chief) is born in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

November 30: The Soviet army invades Finland, beginning the Winter War.

President Franklin Roosevelt supposedly remarks that Anastasio Somoza Garcia of Nicaragua "may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch!"

The stone spheres of Costa Rica are discovered by an American fruit company while clearing away the jungle for banana plantations.