Timeline

The following is a complete time-line including most key events from the main Metal Gear series of games: Metal Gear Solid 3, Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2. I will update it to include info from Metal Gear Solid PSP (working title) and Metal Gear Solid 4 when they are released.

I, Fantômas, would like to thank Aero of MGS:TUS for providing an early version of the timeline. I then added missing bits and pieces.

The Timeline
Beginning of the 20th Century:

Date unknown: Reunion of the "Committee of Wise Men". Foundation of a group called "The Philosophers".

1909:

August 12th: Major Zero born.

1914:

July 28th: Beginning of the First World War.

1918:

November 11th: End of the First World War.

1936:

May 15th: Tanya is born.

June 22nd: Para-medic is born.

1939:

August: Albert Einstein writes a letter to the 26th American President Theodore Roosevelt and requests the construction of the first atomic bomb.

September 1st: Beginning of the Second World War.

November 11th: Sigint is born.

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

1941:

June 22nd: The "Great Patriotic War" begins with surprise attacks from German panzer armies, as the German army begins invading the Soviet Union.

July: The SAS (Special Air Service) of the British army is formed ("Who Dares, Wins"). December 7th: The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks Pearl Harbour.

1942:

August: The Manhattan Project is started. Otacon's grandfather is assigned to work on the project.

August 21st: The German besiege the city of Stalingrad.

''December 2nd: Physicist Enrico Fermi splits an atom in a nuclear reactor for the very first time.

Date unknown: The Boss sets up the Cobra Unit.

1943:

February 2nd: The Battle of Stalingrad is over. The Soviet army defeats the Germans.

1944:

June 6th (D-Day): The Boss gives birth in Normandy. Ocelot is born. The Sorrow is the father. The baby is eventually taken by The Philosophers.

1945:

May 8th: End of the Second World War; beginning of the Cold War.

July 16th: The first nuclear test, code-named "Trinity", is conducted.

August 6th: Hiroshima is bombed. Otacon's father is born.

August 9th: Nagasaki is bombed.

September 2nd: Vietnam declares independence.

1946:

February 14th: ENIAC, the world's first computer, is unveiled.

1947:

September: The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is created.

October 14th: Pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in the Bell X1.

Date unknown: The Boss disbands the Cobra Unit.

1949:

April 4th: The NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) is formed.

May: Germany is split up in East and West.

August: The USSR tests their first nuclear bomb in Semipalatinsk, Kazachstan, and becomes the world's second nuclear force.

October 1st: The People's Republic of China is formed.

1950:

June 25th: Beginning of the Korean War.

Date unknown: Jack becomes a student of The Boss.

1951:

November 1st: The "Buster-Jangle Dog" nuclear test is conducted in Area 7 in Nevada, with army troops cooperating.

1952:

June: The NSA (National Security Agency) is formed.

Date unknown: Invention of the hydrogen bomb.

1953:

April 25th: Watson and Crick discover the double helix structure of DNA.

June 27th: End of the Korean War.

September 7th: Nikita Krushchev becomes the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1954:

January: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces the New Look policy (the so-called "massive retaliation strategy").

January 21st: The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, is launched.

March 1st: The hydrogen bomb is tested in Bikini Atoll.

March 13th: The KGB (Committee for State Security) is formed.

March 13th until May 7th: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

1955:

April 18th: Albert Einstein dies, begging for the end of nuclear weapons.

1957:

August: The Soviet Union successfully launches the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

October 4th: USSR launch Sputnik I.

1958:

February 1st: America launches its first satellite, the Explorer I.

July 29th: NASA is established. Work doesn't begin until October 1st.

1959:

January 1st: The Cuban Revolution.

October 6th: The Luna 3 takes pictures of the dark side of the moon.

Date unknown: The Boss abandons Jack (Big Boss) on a mission without any explanation.

1960:

May: The Southern Vietnamese NLF (National Liberation Front) is established.

May 1st: A Lockheed U-2 aircraft enters Soviet airspace. It is shot down and crashes near Sverdlovsk.

Date unknown: The Boss becomes the first unofficial person in space.

(More to come, I'm still preparing the rest to be imported)