Being a list of important and notable events (some fictional, most factual) that have lead to the world as it exists in the Shadow Stalkers world of 1872.

• 1795 – Wold Newton Event: On December 13, there “fell from the atmosphere an extraordinary stone”.
• 1815 – Analytical Society founded at Cambridge. Robert Fulton builds the U.S.S. Fulton, the first steam warship, for the U.S. Navy.
• 1817-1825 – Construction of Erie Canal in New York.
• 1817 – Simon Bolivar establishes an independent government in Venezuela.
• 1819 – The SS Savannah is the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, taking 26 days, leaving the port of Savannah, Georgia, on May 22, 1819, captained by Moses Rogers, on her famous voyage, and she arrived in Liverpool, England, on June 20, 1819. The British East India Company establishes a settlement in Singapore.
• 1820 – The Prince Regent succeeds his father (George III) as George IV. The Missouri Compromise brings Maine into the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state.
• 1821 – The Catholic Church lifts its ban on teaching the Copernican system.
• 1822 – Proposition by Mr. Charles Babbage (d.1871) to the Royal Astronomical Society of Difference Engine. Britain repeals the death penalty for over 100 crimes. Jean-Francois Champollion translates the Rosetta Stone. The Royal Asiatic Society founded.
• 1823 – Mechanics’ Institutes are founded in London and Glasgow. Proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine.
• 1825 – The Stockton & Darlington Railway offers the first passenger rail service (England). Thomas Telford builds the Menai Bridge, the first large-scale suspension bridge (North Wales). The first horse-drawn omnibuses are established in London.
• 1826-1832 – A cholera epidemic begins in India and eventually reaches Europe and the British Isles.
• 1827 – Joseph Smith founds the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Joseph Ressel invents the screw propeller. Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) publishes his first travel guides.
• 1828 – Britain allows Catholics and Dissenters to hold public office. Construction begins on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the first in North America.
• 1829 – The Metropolitan Police Force is founded in London. James Mill publishes a description of the human mind as a machine, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. James Smithson leaves £100,000 to fund the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
• 1830 – King George IV dies and is succeeded by his brother William IV.
• 1831 – Duke of Wellington assassinated for opposition to industrial progress.
• 1832, 1835 – Electoral reforms in Great Britain abolish “rotten boroughs” and increase the number of citizens eligible to vote.
• 1832 – Charles Babbage publishes The Economy of Machines and Manufactures, calling for the integration of scientific research, invention, and industry.
• 1833 – Slavery abolished in the British Empire. William Whewell coins the word scientist.
• 1834 – Jack Evarman born, Glasgow, Scotland near Greystoke Estate. Spanish Inquisition officially suppressed. Charles Babbage develops plans for his Analytical Engine.
• 1835-36 – Texas gains independence from Mexico.
• 1835 – Samuel Colt patents the first revolver.
• 1836 – The Chartist movement in Great Britain demands universal suffrage (for men, of course). Boers in South Africa begin “the Great Trek” across the Orange River, founding Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal as independent states.
• 1837 – William IV dies, and is succeeded by Queen Victoria to the throne. Introduction of daguerreotype photographic reproduction by Louis Daguerre. Samuel Morse patents the electric telegraph and introduces Morse code. William Edward Hoyle born, Boston, MA.
• 1839-1842 – The First Opium War: Britain forces China to accept the opium trade and gains possession of Hong Kong.
• 1839 – J.L. Stephens begins excavation of the ancient Mayan city of Copan. Charles Goodyear develops vulcanized rubber. The [[British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company]] founded (reorganized in 1878 as [[Cunard Steamship Company, Limited]]) to meet increased competition from its rivals, the White Star Line and the Inman Line.
• 1840 – Nikola Tesla born. New Zealand becomes a British colony, through the Treaty of Waitangi, leading to a series of Maori uprisings from 1845 to 1872. Queen Victoria marries Albert of Saxe-Cogurg-Gotha.
• 1841 – Punch: The London Charivari, a British weekly magazine of humor and satire founded. Richard Owen coins the word dinosaur.
• 1842 – The Mine Act bans women and children from working in coal, iron, lead and tin mining. C.W. Long introduces the use of ether for surgical anesthesia.
• 1843 – James Joule quantifies the conversion of work into heat, the basis for the law of conservation of energy. The first night club, Le Bal des Anglais, opens in Paris.
• 1844 – Death of George Gordon, Lord Byron, (b. 1788) aged 56, political figure with Industrial Radical Party. Samuel Morse sets up telegraph lines between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels meet in Paris.
• 1845 – Texas joins the United States. William M’Naught develops the [[compound-expansion steam engine]]. The Irish famine begins; within 5 years it will become Britain’s worst human disaster.
• 1846-1848 – United States and Mexico are at war; United States emerges victorious.
• 1846 – The planet Neptune is discovered by mathematical prediction rather than by empirical observation. William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) estimates the age of the planet Earth at 100,000,000 years based on temperature measurements. Elias Howe patents the sewing machine.
• 1847 – Difference Engine No. 2 produced as an improvement to Charles Babbage’s original computer. Cyrus McCormick begins the manufacture of mechanical reapers. American inventor Thomas Edison born.
• 1848 – Death of around 2,000 people a week in a cholera epidemic. Antimonarchist revolutions take place throughout Europe: the Second Republic is established in France under Louis Napoleon (fall of monarchy in France). Otto von Bismarck and Karl Marx both found newspapers. James Bogardus constructs the first building with a cast-iron frame. Marx and Engels publish the Communist Manifesto. Forteana: moon turns “blood red” during a total eclipse.
• 1849 – Gold rush begins in northern California.
• 1850-1864 – Taiping Rebellion takes place in China.
• 1850 – American Express Company founded as an express mail business in Buffalo, NY. Restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Britain. Pinkerton National Detective Agency established. The first purpose-built steam battleship, the 90-gun, Le Napoléon launched in service to the French Navy.
• 1851 – The Great Exhibition (the first World’s Fair) held at the Crystal Palace in Serpentine Park.
• 1852 – Louis Napoleon establishes the Second Empire as Napoleon III. Henri Giffard builds the first steam-powered dirigible. E.G. Otis invents the safety elevator. Henry Wells and [[William G. Fargo]], the two founders of American Express, form Wells Fargo & Company to provide express and banking services to California.
• 1853-1856 – Crimean War: Russia is defeated by the Ottoman Empire and its allies Great Britain and France.
• 1853 – Colonel Samuel Colt begins manufacturing revolvers. Alexander Wood invents the hypodermic syringe. Chloroform gains acceptance when given to Queen Victoria during birth of her eighth child.
• 1854 – Matthew Peary opens Japan to Western trade. George Boole develops mathematical logic.
• 1856 – The first Neanderthal remains are discovered. W.H. Perkin produces aniline purple, the first synthetic dye. Henry Bessemer develops a process fro making steel in large quantities. “Big Ben” is cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Lightning strikes the ground in Kensington, NH, creating a 30-foot deep well that fills with fresh water.
• 1857-1858 – The Indian Mutiny leads to direct administration of India by the British government.
• 1857 – Speculation in U.S. railway shares causes European financial crisis. The Russian serfs are emancipated.
• 1858 – Darwin and Wallace communicate the theory of evolution by natural selection to the Linnaean Society. British Raj: East India Company abolished as direct result of Indian Mutiny; India comes under direct British rule. Launching of the Great Eastern, the largest ship of the time (27,000 tons).
• 1859-1869 – Construction of Suez Canal in Egypt.
• 1859 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. R.L.G. Plante invents the first practical storage battery. The first ironclad battleship, La Gloire, was launched by the French Navy.
• 1860 – Britain’s first all iron warship, the Wells Fargo gains control of Butterfield Overland Mail Company, leading to operation of the western portion of the Pony Express.
• 1861-1865 – Confederate States secede and elect Jefferson Davis president; American Civil War ends in the defeat of the South; as a byproduct, slavery is abolished.
• 1861 – Death of Prince Albert; Queen Victoria refuses to go out in public for many years, and when she does she wears a widow’s bonnet instead of the crown. Jacolliot writes about the Nine Unknown in Calcutta. Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia is enthroned as king of a unified Italy.
• 1862-1869 – Construction of the Union Pacific Railway, the first transcontinental railroad in North America.
• 1862 – Otto von Bismarck becomes the Prime Minister of Prussia. R.J. Gatling invents the Gatling gun. The first battle between ironclad ships takes place between the Karl Marx founds the First International Workingmen’s Association in London and New York. Pope Pius IX condemns liberalism, rationalism, and socialism in the Syllabus Errorum. The first Geneva Convention establishes the neutrality of medical facilities in war.
• 1865 – Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Booth. Andrew Johnson becomes president. American Civil War ends. Thirteenth amendment abolishes slavery. The laying of a transatlantic telegraph cable is completed by the steamship Great Eastern. James Clerk Maxwell publishes his electromagnetic equations. Joseph Lister develops antiseptic surgery. George Mendel publishes his (largely ignored) work on genetics.
• 1866 – The [[Austro-Prussian War]] ends in a rapid Prussian victory and establishes Prussian Dominance over the North German Federation. Alfred Nobel invents dynamite. Invention and introduction of Remington Double Derringer (using the .41 Rimfire Short cartridge). ‘Grand consolidation’ unites Wells Fargo, Holladay, and Overland Mail stage lines under the Wells Fargo name. Ku Klux Klan founded as a social club in Pulaski, TN.
• 1867 – Natural philosopher Michael Faraday, FRS dies (b. 1791). A shower of sulfur and fire falls upon Thames Ditton, England. The Order of the Crimson Dawn founded by the Nine. Invention and introduction of Mauser rifle. Canada is organized as a Dominion. Russia sells Alaska to the United States. Diamonds are discovered in South Africa.
• 1868 – The shogunate is abolished in Japan; the Meiji Dynasty is established and begins to modernize (and Westernize) Japan.
• 1869 – Thomas Edison (b. 1847) creates his first successful invention, the stock ticker. Dmitri Mendeleyev publishes the Periodic Table of Elements. Fancis Galton publishes Hereditary Genius, the first major work on eugenics. [[Count of St. Germain]] allegedly completes 85 years in the Himalayas after his “death” in 1784. America: completion of transcontinental railroad.
• 1870-1871 – Franco Prussian War leads quickly to a French defeat. Parisians revolt and found the Paris Commune, but are then defeated by the Prussians. King of Prussia becomes the Emperor of Germany. Italy takes advantage of French distraction to seize Rome from the Pope.
• 1871 – The founding of the Fellowship by concerned members of the Royal Society. The First Annual International Exhibition, London.
• 1872 – Campaign begins.

Timeline of Events 1871

• January 2 – Amadeus I becomes King of Spain.
• January 18 – The member-states of the North German Federation and the south German states unite into a single nation-state known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany.
• January 21 – Giuseppe Garibaldi’s troops win in Dijon.
• March 22 – In North Carolina, William Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment. The U.S. Army issues an order for abandonment of Fort Kearny in Nebraska.
• March 26 – The Paris Commune is formally established in Paris.
• March 27 – The first Rugby Union International results in a 4-1 win by Scotland over England.
• March 29 – The Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.
• April – The Stockholms Handelsbank is founded.
• April 20 – United States President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Ku Klux Klan Act.
• May 4 – The first MLB baseball game is played.
• May 10 – France surrenders, ending the Franco-Prussian War.
• May 21 – Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the [[Rigi-Bahnen]] on Mount Rigi.
• May 21-30 – French Third Republic: Government troops invade the Paris Commune and crush the rebellion.
• June 10 – Captain McLane Tilton leads 109 Marines in a naval attack on the Han River forts in Korea.
• June 18—The University Tests Act removes religious tests at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham universities.
• July 20 – British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
• August 31 – Adolphe Thiers becomes President of the French Republic.
• September – Whaling Disaster of 1871: 1,219 people abandon 33 whaling ships caught in the ice off the north coast of Alaska.
• October 8 – Four major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan, and though the Chicago Fire is more famous, the Peshtigo Fire kills as many as 2,500 people, making it the deadliest fire in United States history.
• October 27 – The Comte de Chambord refuses to be crowned ‘King Henry V of France’ until France abandons its tricolour and returns to the old Bourbon flag.
• October 27 – The Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall (“Boss” William M. Tweed) is arrested.
• November 5 – Wickenburg Massacre: Six men traveling by stagecoach are murdered by the Yavapai.
• November 10 – Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, and greets him by saying “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
• November 17 – The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.
• December 10 – German chancellor Otto von Bismarck tries to ban Catholics from the political stage by introducing harsh laws concerning the separation of church and state.
• December 25 – The Reading Football Club is formed.
• December 26 – Thespis, the first of the [[Gilbert & Sullivan]] operas, premières. It does modestly well, but the two will not collaborate again for 4 years.