Timeline (Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg)

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The timeline of Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg is long and complex. This page will probably confuse you, but I think you'll appreciate the detail and research.

1917: For Want of a Nail

• January 8th. Kaiser Wilhelm hears arguments from the military leaders, Generals Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg, in favor of reopening unrestricted submarine warfare in an attempt to starve Great Britain and France of trans-Atlantic supplies. The Kaiser, having noticed Ludendorff and Hindenburg's rising power in the Empire, is weary of their advice, and as such he ultimately decides against this course of action. This is the Point of Divergence from real life history. In the moment, all the Kaiser's decision amounts to is simply a slight delay of Ludendorff and Hindenburg's ambitions, but the consequences further down the line will be much more far reaching.
• Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg is forced to resign and is replaced by Georg Michaelis. It is soon clear that Michaelis is little more than a puppet for Generals von Hindenburg and Ludendorff.
• On the Western Front, the heavy French casualties at Chemin des Dames lead to a strike among the French soldiers. This disaster discourages the French high-command from launching further great offensives until the end of the year, giving Germany a chance to recover from the Brusilov Offensive.
• March 1917: Russia collapses into anarchy. Tsar Nicholas II abdicates. A provisional government is formed under Alexander Kerensky, but this government is overthrown by Lenin's Bolsheviks in November, starting the Russian Civil War.
• April 2, 1917. President Woodrow Wilson asks the United States Congress to declare war on the Central Powers. Journalist John "Jack" Reed denounces the effort in scathing articles throughout the United States. Through his efforts and others, public opinion is firmly against intervention and the vote fails. The United States remains neutral for the rest of the conflict.
• In Italy the Caporetto Offensive beats the Italians back to the Piave river where only a last minute defense saves Venice from occupation.
• The Ottomans receive blow after blow in the Middle East, with both Baghdad and Jerusalem being lost to British forces.
• A British submarine mistakenly torpedoes an American freighter carrying Christmas gifts to Germany, killing several US citizens. The public backlash forces a partial opening of the blockade, averting famine in Central Europe.
• Jack Reed travels to Russia as a war correspondent, writing in support of the Bolshevik Reds.

1918: It Continues

• In early March the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is signed between the Germans and the Bolsheviks, freeing thousands of German and Austrian troops for other fronts. The Bolsheviks cede Finland, the Baltic states, Congress Poland, Belarus and Ukraine to the Germans.
• A great Allied spring offensive, designed at breaking the German lines before their reinforcements arrive, is repulsed at great cost.
• Operation Teutoberg is launched, attempting to kick Greece out of the war. Instead of assaulting the Salonika stronghold head on, the Central Powers make use of specialized storm-troopers and so called "infiltration" tactics. The defenders at Salonika are pinned down while the rest of the German-Bulgarian forces sweep through Greece. Athens falls on July 3rd, causing the Greek government to surrender. The western forces at Salonika are evacuated.
• Anti-Bolshevik White Russian forces of the "Volunteer Army" under General Lavr Kornilov retreat south from Rostov across the frozen Kuban steppe from February to May. The famous "Ice March" campaign concludes with Kornilov narrowly escaping death from an artillery shell on his headquarters during the Battle of Yekaterinodar. The city's capture cements the Whites' control over the Kuban Cossack heartland.
• General Allenby manages to pull off the last great Allied victory of the war, encircling and destroying large parts of the Ottoman Army and conquering Damascus. Only the last minute arrival of two German divisions in Asia Minor prevents an outright invasion of Anatolia.
• Vladimir Lenin, the famous leader of the Russian Bolsheviks, is assassinated by Fanny Kaplan following the Bolsheviks' suppression of the Left SRs. Lev Kamenev quickly succeeds Lenin, but Bolshevik spirits are shaken.
• Successful Allied tactics against Germany's U-boats and the blockade of Germany leads to a desperate sally of the Hochseeflotte, now led by Admiral Hipper. The Second Battle of Jutland ends in a tie, but the shock of being assaulted forces the Royal Navy to break their blockade. The total end of the blockade and the influx of Ukrainian grain ends all fears of Germany being starved into submission.
• Meanwhile, Kaiser Karl, under pressure by the continuously crumbling homefront and swelling spirit of revolution, issues the Völkermanifest, promising national self-determination within the Austro-Hungarian Empire once the war is won, placating Austria's numerous ethnic minorities. Even though the manifesto does not pose any demands to Hungary, self-determination of a Croat state is agreed upon by both sides of the Dual Monarchy by the end of October, resulting in the Kingdom of Croatia achieving the same status as Hungary.
• After almost a month of negotiations between the anti-Bolshevik Constituent Assembly and Siberian governments, Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak reluctantly launches a British-backed coup to unite the fractious Whites. The situation is salvaged by the arrival of Boris Savinkov, who convinces Kolchak to accept many of the SR's demands, and limit his power to only supreme command over military affairs.
• The Great War Boom in Japan ends as the "Rice Riots" break out across the home islands.

1919: One Swift Strike and the War is Over

• January 18th. Jack Reed first meets Leon Trostky and Vladimir Lenin during a break at the Soviet Constituent Assembly.
• March 2nd. The Germans launch their Great Offensive at St. Mihiel, south of Verdun. Their infiltration tactics prove to be successful, with Nancy falling on the 16th. The French organize an ad-hoc defense, leaving their flank exposed. An attack on Reims on the 26th splits the Allied forces in two. An attack on Château-Thierry means the French cannot retreat back to the Marne. The entire French army is forced to retreat south. Paris is placed under siege by the German Army.
• March 11th. Operation Radowitz is launched by the Central Powers. Italian forces are attacked from Trento instead of the Piave. Vicenza and Verona fall on the 24th, pinning the Italians between two Central armies after Venice is reached on the 10th of April. The Siege of Venice would last until July, but with most of the Italian army occupied the rest of Italy lies defenseless. Rome falls on August 1st. Italy surrenders a few days later. The surrender of Italy means the road to Southern France is now open, with Marseilles falling in September.
• In Mexico, General Álvaro Obregón decides to use his immense popularity to run in the 1920 presidential elections. President Venustiano Carranza announces he will not run for another term, endorsing diplomat Ignacio Bonillas in the election.
• As Italy collapses, Empress Zewditu of Ethiopia and Sayyid al-Hasan of the Dervish State declare war on the former nation, retaking their territory from Italian colonial rule and reversing European colonization of Africa for the first time.
• Allied setbacks lead to Allenby and most of his troops being redeployed to France. Allenby’s successor, Sir William Marshall, is forced to slowly retreat from the Middle East due to a lack of manpower.
• The retreat of the French Army leads to the positions of the BEF becoming indefensible. Most of the British forces are evacuated at Dieppe in June, leaving the French on their own. At this point the French Army, battered, war-weary and with little hope of victory is in open rebellion. With a second mass mutiny, a general uprising of the working classes imminent, the fall of Paris a certainty, and Marseilles in German hands, the French government capitulates on the 4th of October, ending the war in Europe. One month later, the Central Powers and the remaining Allied Powers sign a ceasefire in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), led by anarcho-syndicalist Emile Pouget, declare a general strike in reaction to the bloody defeat of the French army during the German Great Offensive and its second mutiny. The strikers seek an immediate end to the war. After the fall of Paris, the government of Georges Clemenceau is replaced by a Provisional Government under Aristide Briand and enters into negotiations with the strikers.

The Terms of Peace (1919)

The fall of France, Russia, Italy and their allies in the Balkans reduces the Entente to the British Empire, Japan and Portugal. While none of these countries are under direct German threat, none are able to pose a threat to Germany. The battle between Germany and Britain continues for two more years by proxy in Ireland and elsewhere, while the otherwise victorious Central Powers divide up their conquests.

• Serbia cedes Macedonia to Bulgaria and is forced to accept Austro-Hungarian oversight in most of her domestic and foreign affairs. Albania suffers a similar fate. Montenegro is annexed by Austria outright.
• Greece is forced to cede Greek Macedonia and Salonika to Bulgaria, and must accept a German lease on Crete for as long as the Kaiser deems necessary.
• Romania is forced to cede the entire Dobrudja to Bulgaria and the Carpathian mountain passes to Hungary. It is, however, granted the former Russian province of Bessarabia. Full religious minority rights are instituted in the country and the economic interests of the Central Powers are secured.
• Italy is split apart into a number of weak republics, duchies and principalities with Tuscany, the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies returning to the map of Europe. The Republic of Venice is made a completely demilitarized buffer state for Austria-Hungary. However, the Italian Civil War means that this arrangement doesn't stay on the map of Europe for long.
• Libya becomes a client kingdom of the Ottoman Empire.
• Norway is given the Spitzbergen islands, despite protests from Representatives from Russia.
• France cedes Dahomey, Cote D'Ivoire, Madagascar, all of French Equatorial Africa south of Lake Chad, Pondicherry, Indochina, and her Pacific colonies, along with a swath of territory from Pas-de-Calais to Lorraine. However, the Syndicalist revolution prevents the occupation of anything outside Lorraine.
• Belgium is reorganized into the Kingdom of Flanders-Wallonia with the Kaiser's son Adalbert becoming the new king. The Belgian Congo is given to Germany and Wallonia east of the Meuse, the location of most Belgian industry, is occupied as long as the German government deems necessary. The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg becomes a constituent state of the German Empire.
• The acquisitions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk are organized into a series of German puppet states. Estonia and Latvia are fused into the United Baltic Duchy, with Adolf Friedrich von Mecklenburg becoming its first Grand Duke. The Kaiser's brother Heinrich becomes King Genrikh I of White Ruthenia (Belarus). Poland and Finland become independent states under German protection, with the Kaiser's brother-in-law Friedrich-Karl von Hessen becoming King of Finland. Lithuania becomes independent with Wilhelm von Urach, Duke of Urach, becoming King Mindaugas. The Austrian Archduke Wilhelm Franz ascends to the throne of Ukraine, aligning the country with Mitteleuropa.

1919 Continued: Aux armes, citoyens, Formez vos bataillons!

• The Southern White Russians begin their "Volga Campaign" with the capture of the city of Tsaritsyn. Led by General Pyotr Wrangel, the Whites swiftly seize Saratov, but are halted at Samara by Leon Trotsky. It takes until July for a Siberian White counter-offensive to force Trotsky to withdraw and surrender Samara, ultimately uniting the two largest White fronts.
• In the Baltics, the White Russian Northwestern Army under General Nikolai Yudenich launches its offensive towards Red Petrograd. The outnumbered Reds are quickly forced to withdraw to Petrograd itself, and the Whites (with White Ruthenian and Baltic support) place the city under siege.
• The Southern and Siberian Whites meet in the recaptured city of Ufa to negotiate a union of their governments. It is ultimately decided that Alexander Kolchak will remain supreme military commander of all White Russian forces, with Sergey Sazonov acting as prime minister. Most importantly, however, the Siberian Whites agree to follow the example of the Southern Whites, and cut ties with the Entente. Petrograd falls shortly afterwards to Yudenich's troops, and he presents the city as a gift upon also ratifying his support for the new, unified Provisional All-Russian Government.
• Huey Long is elected to the Louisiana Railroad Commission at the age of 25. He uses revolutionary campaigning techniques of mass media print propaganda and direct appeals to the working men, demonizing corporations and utility companies to earn populist respect from Louisiana voters.
• French Jacobin radicals, inspired by their Russian brethren and Leninist theories about a revolutionary vanguard start a series of attacks on government officials and public buildings, ending the chance of the striking CGT and Provisional Government of reaching any agreement. An attempt by the government to use demobilized soldiers to restore order ends in many soldiers joining the revolutionaries. France is engulfed in a short but bloody war, ending in a victory for the revolutionaries. Emile Pouget starts the difficult task of changing the French Republic into the Commune of France.
• The remains of the French establishment flee to Algiers and create a government-in-exile throughout the North Africa Colonies and Corsica. They are led by Marshal Ferdinand Foch.
• Two days after the announcement of the nation-ending 'peace', the Republic of Italy is proclaimed in Milan by incensed Italian Republicans. All treaties signed by the House of Savoy are to be considered null and void. Republican uprisings broke out across Italy, and by early October, Austrian garrisons have been pushed out of Central Italy.
• A left-right split begins in the Italian Republican front starting in October. By December, the rift has become irreparable, and right-wing "White" Republicans reached out to the Austrians for a possible compromise against the socialists. When the Whites plans were leaked, the Republican front utterly collapsed; on the Christmas Day of 1919, Italian socialists proclaimed the competing Socialist Republic of Italy in Torino.
• Hashemite Rebels, in disarray and without any foreign support, are crushed by a joint Saud-Ottoman campaign.
• Baron Ungern von Sternberg and his ‘Wild division’ take the Mongolian capital of Urga, with Sternberg declaring himself Mongolia's supreme ruler.
• Uruguay establishes its Council of National Administration, ending local political tensions for the time being.

1920: The Retreat Comes to an End

• Germany dispatches forces from its French Occupation in Toul to assist in the crushing of the Soviet Union. Adolf Hitler is killed during this intervention via a Soviet mustard gas attack. His diary is returned to his sister along with the rest of his personal effects and lays forgotten.
• Though Moscow has been under siege from a combined army of Whites since November of 1919, it takes until January 22nd, 1920 for the Bolsheviks to finally submit a formal surrender. Outnumbered, outgunned, and crippled by starvation and desertion, the Reds have little choice but throw themselves at the mercy of the Provisional Government. The Whites stand victorious at the formal conclusion of the civil war. Jack Reed leaves Russia and returns to the United States of America.
• The White Russians send a delegation of Alexander Kolchak, Sergei Sazonov, and Alexander Kerensky to ratify a modified version of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, despite furious protestations from nearly all elements of Russian society. With the nascent Russian Republic in almost as poor shape as the Bolsheviks had been in 1918, the Russians have little choice but to agree to German demands, lest they face "punitive action" by the Kaiser's armies.
• Due to his alling health, the US President, Woodrow Wilson, announces that he declines to run for a third term in the Presidental Elections later that year. The Election eventually takes place as the first US elections with full women's suffrage, as the 18th Amendment comes into effect on November 1st. The Democratic Party's candidate, Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo is eventually declared the victor and becomes the 29th President of the United States with Alexander Palmer as his Vice-President.
• The Italian Civil War reaches it's de facto end as outnumbered Austrian and Republican forces defeat the Socialist attackers in the Po River Offensive. Wary of starting a full scale war with Austria and with most of its territory devastated by conflict, the SRI quits its offensives. Only 3 states of the former Italian Federation are still existing at this point.
• In Mexico, President Carranza attempts to have General Álvaro Obregón arrested before he can run for president of Mexico. A military coup immediately takes place with 70% of Mexican soldiers joining General Adolfo de la Huerta in deposing Carranza. Carranza refuses to recognize the military junta and flees Mexico City. He is assassinated on May 21st in the mountains north of Puebla.
  • Emiliano Zapata's revolutionaries capitalize on the military coup and launch a lightning advance across Mexico. Revolutionary General Pablo González captures the cities of Cuernavaca, Cuautla, Xochimilco and Toluca, reaching Mexico City itself before Obregón's forces. Generals Obregón and De la Huerta accept a proposed power sharing agreement from Zapata. Obregón accepts the position of President of Mexico while Zapata becomes Minister of Agriculture. Pancho Villa is offered the position of Ambassador to the Commune of France and he accepts. Together, the three initiate widespread Land Reform.

1921: The Butterfly Flaps Its Wings

• Kaiser Karl reconvenes the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Council and announces his intent to move forward with the institution of national self-determination within the Empire. The Empire begins to peacefully dissolve into a federation of states lead by Imperial Austria and Hungary.
• The promising political career of Franklin D. Roosevelt is tragically cut short when he succumbs to polio.

The Peace with Honour (1921)

• As the ceasefire between Germany and Great Britain began to run out and with neither side willing to re-enter direct conflict, General Ludendorff proposes a "Peace with Honour" to the Entente. The remaining Entente members will acknowledge the peace treaties between Germany and the former Entente members and return Germany's colonies (including those transferred in the peace treaties) in exchange for a return to status-quo ante-bellum. The peace is signed at 11 AM on the 11th of November, 1921, ending the Weltkrieg after seven long years.
• In the East, Japan retains control of the Korean Peninsula and her other island territories. The government and the economy are crippled as the West descends into economic chaos and France is overtaken by revolution.

1922: Ireland Forever

• After the Easter Uprising in 1916 and five years of war, a peace treaty is concluded between the UK and Irish rebels that leads to the creation of a new Free Irish State on 1st January, 1922. With the Protestant north as an autonomous region and the King as a figurehead only nominally acknowledged, opposition to the treaty is minimal.
• Huey Long wins a lawsuit against the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases, resulting in a cash refunds of $440,000 divided amongst 80,000 overcharged customers ($5.50 in 1922, roughly $85 in 2019 value). Long successfully argues the case on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the settlement against CT&T. Chief Justice William Howard Taft describes Long as one of the best legal minds he has ever encountered.
• England's colonial possessions in South Rhodesia merge with South Africa, their leadership nervous of potential German expansionism in the region.
• In Portugal, the Monarchy is restored after a coup led my Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro.
• Paraguay descends into Civil War after several decades of disastrous Liberal Party rule.

1923: A Return to Normalcy

• After being linked to a mass embezzlement of public funds, Ludendorff is removed from his post, ending military rule in Germany. Grand Admiral von Tirpitz is elected Chancellor of Germany, beginning the golden age of Weltpolitik.
• September 1st. A 7.9 Earthquake strikes the Kantō Plain outside Tokyo. A coalition of Anarchists and Syndicalists attempt a violent coup in the midst of the recovery and are repelled.
• The Victoria Police Strike in Australia leads to a Syndicalist uprising and the brief formation of a Melbourne Commune. George V implements the Emergency Protocols and a campaign against the commune begins.
• Adolfo de la Huerta succeeds Álvaro Obregón as President of Mexico. He continues the leftist reforms of his predecessors.
• December 27th. Japanese Anarchist Namba Daisuke attempts to assassinate Prince Regent Hirohito but fails. Faced with both an attempted coup and an assassination attempt on the Prince Regent, Prime Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyoe and his cabinet resign immediately. Army Minister General Tanaka Giichi is appointed Prime Minister to stabilize the country. Martial law is imposed over the home islands for the first time in Japanese history as the country is overtaken by a Red Scare. The former ruling party Rikken Seiyukai splits and causes a political crisis in the Diet. The supporters of Tanaka form the Seiyuhonto party.

1924: Peace, Land, and Bread

• In Russia, a coup is attempted by a loose coalition of businessmen, industrialists, center-right conservatives, and Siberian autonomists, all of whom are united chiefly by strong anti-German sentiment. Alexander Kolchak, despite having little involvement with the plot, is declared provisional dictator. Only a handful of units in Siberia side with the plot and all ultimately agree to stand-down rather than fight the army units sent to suppress them. Seeing the writing on the wall the plotters disperse. Kolchak accepts an Anglo-Japanese offer to be installed as an anti-German pretender in the "Russian Republic" of Transamur.
• Seeing the chaos engulfing Russia in the wake of the Kolchak Putsch and resentful of broken promises for autonomy, the Don, Kuban, and Terek Cossacks mutiny at the urging of General Pyotr Krasnov. Though support for the rebellion is far from universal among the Cossacks, the feeble state of the Russian army leads Kerensky to reluctantly agree to Krasnov's demands. The newly-created "Don-Kuban Union" that arises is independent from Russia in all but name.
• The Consolidation of Resources Act merges Australia and New Zealand into the Australasian Confederation with Stanley Bruce as Prime Minister. Elections are suspended and much of the new Dominion is put under martial law. George V uses demobilized Weltkrieg troops and paramilitary groups to finally crush the Melbourne Commune. Bruce oversees the creation of an Authoritarian Democracy in Australia and New Zealand.
• The Summer Olympics, the first to be held in over a decade, take place in Berlin.
• Gerardo Machado is elected President of Cuba. He immediately begins to erode constitutional checks on his power and strengthens ties between Cuba and the United States.
• November 6th. In the United States of America, President McAdoo is elected to a second term.
• Huey Long runs for Governor of the State of Louisiana but finishes in third place after refusing to take a stand for or against The Klan. Despite the loss, Long is easily re-elected to the Public Service Commission. He spends the next four years building his political brand and becoming a larger force in American politics.

1925: The Sun Sets on the British Empire

• A British general strike over coal tariffs escalates into an nationwide uprising when government troops massacre striking miners. After the army begins to stand down or defect and the Royal Navy begins to mutiny, the government and Monarchy flee to Canada. A coalition of leftists centered on the Trades Union Congress take control of England, Scotland and Wales under the charismatic John McLean, creating the Union of Britain.
• Michael Collins dissolves the Irish Free State and the autonomy of Ulster, proclaiming the Republic of Ireland with himself as President.
• The collapse of the British government leads to a massive land-grab for its overseas possessions.
  • Gibraltar finally falls into Spanish hands.
  • Argentina quickly seizes the Falkland Islands
  • Egypt gains sole authority over the Sudan.
  • Nejd invades the Trucial States.
  • Shammar ensures the fealty of Kuwait.
  • The Ottoman Empire regains control over Cyprus and Aden, the latter of which was placed under Yemeni jurisdiction.
  • Germany manages to secure most of the British African holdings as well as the strategic locations of Malta, the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, Berbera, Ceylon, the Strait Colonies, Brunei, and Sarawak.
  • Australasia retains control over the British parts of New Guinea and Fiji. The British Far East Fleet under command of Admiral David Murray Anderson suppresses mutinies within its ranks and departs for Australia and New Zealand with colonial staff and civilians from the China Station.
  • India, once the pearl in the British crown breaks down into three new states. The loyalist Dominion of Delhi, retains control of the northwest, while the Indian National Congress forms its own government, the Bhartiya Commune in the east. The Princes of the south form their own independent Princely Federation.
  • Burma becomes an independent kingdom once again.
  • The facade of a protectorate Britain claimed in Somalia collapses and Sultan Mohamoud formally proclaims Somali independence.
  • South Africa manages to secure the Bechuana Protectorate and is nominally loyalist. Tensions between the pro-Entente Smuts and pro-republic Hertzog grows.
  • The Royal Navy's Caribbean Squadron secures the British colonies in the region. These colonies join together with the former French colonies in the region and form the West Indies Federation. Venezuela protests its claims to the United States yet again.
  • In Canada the Senate is replaced by a reconstituted House of Lords.
• In the Japanese General Elections, the military government of the Seiyuhonto becomes the ruling party. With the opposition in disarray the Tanaka regime enacts the Peace Preservation Law, enabling the state to impose the death penalty on those who attempt to harm the 'National Polity'. The law comes to symbolize the draconian rule of Prime Minister Tanaka.
• April 20th. The New York Stock Exchange suffers its greatest one day loss in history. The Roaring Twenties give way to what will be known as the Great Depression.
• Despite the sudden shift in economic conditions, the American shipbuilding industry remains strong, allowing the US Navy to go forward with the Wilbur Plan. Named after Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur, it was created in the wake of a large majority of the Royal Navy being stationed in Canada, thus causing a relatively-comparable naval opponent to be next door, as well as to match growing German, National French, Communard French, and Japanese naval strength. The plan calls for the USN, by 1940, to possess 40 battleships, 2 super battleships, 20 battlecruisers (7 converted battleships and 13 purpose-built battlecruisers ), 21 aircraft carriers, 18 heavy cruisers, 25 light cruisers, and a whopping 1,000 destroyers (the plan says nothing about submarines, which are considered a separate command from the main battle fleets). The plan quickly falls apart due to a sudden collapse in the shipbuilding industry. Only the six Northampton-class heavy cruisers and the "V-boat" submarines are built in this timeframe.
• July 12th. At a conference of the Industrial Workers of the World, Jack Reed proposes the formation of a unified political organization to coordinate the activities of American unions. The Combined Syndicates of America is formed. The AFL balks when there is open talk of revolution and leaves the conference, but the "One Big Union" is now a unified force in American politics.
• The Australasian Guard forms in Australia. The Paramilitary group seeks radical measures to combat economic hardships and openly advocates a position of Revanchism.
• A supposedly Serb-sponsored pan-Slavic revolt sweeps over the Southern parts of the Austrian sphere, endangering Austrian hegemony in the region. The Austrian Kaiser deals with this by playing the Croats against the Serbs, establishing a Croat-led Panslavic Kingdom under the name of Illyria. Hungary is not amused.
• October 4th. The American Socialist Party convenes for the upcoming elections and is swayed to Jack Reed's platform of direct action. Those opposed to direct action pledge not to hinder Jack's efforts in the upcoming elections.

1926: The East Stabilizes, the South Erupts

• In the divided Republic of China, the Kuomintang under the lead of General Chiang Kai-shek launches the Northern Expedition to reunite China from the warlords. Germany sees the KMT as a gateway to Syndicalism rising in the east, and makes plans to intervene in China.
• German forces intervene in the Northern Expedition, and quickly manage to defeat the National Revolutionary Army, throwing the KMT into chaos. Chiang is blamed for the failure of the Northern Expedition, and is assassinated by one of his political rivals. The left-wing branch of KMT flees abroad, while the right-wing branch of KMT (represented by the military officers) go into hiding in Southern China.
• In Japan, scandal erupts over the so-called 'earthquake bills' and malfeasance in the Bank of Taiwan, causing widespread bank closures and dealing another blow to Japanese stability. On the diplomatic front, Tanaka's indecisive policies fail to secure Japanese interests in China from either the advancing Nationalists nor from the German intervention. The weakness of his rule is publicly exposed. The ruling Coalition splits shortly before the Taisho Emperor dies.
• Brazil falls into Civil War after São Paulo state-president Washington Luis is assassinated, already under heightened tensions due to federal troops trespassing into said state.
• April. The two main opposition parties in Japan, the Rikken Seiyukai and the Kenseikai form a coalition and start the 'Second Movement to Protect the Constitution'. Facing popular support for the opposition and the Prince Regent's indirect intervention, Tanaka and his cabinet are forced to resign. In an event later called the 'Constitutional Restoration of 1926', the Rikken Seiyukai and the Kenseikai form the 'Constitutionalist Coalition' cabinet, with promises of democratic governance, universal suffrage, and a party-based cabinet.
• American corporations struggle in the grip by the Great Depression and finally relax their policy of shunning trade with Germany. Those in the Pacific Northwest open trade with Japanese zaibatsu instead. The Western states begin to show signs of economic growth in spite of the Depression.
• November. Congressional Midterm elections are held in the United States. The American Socialist Party gains 18 seats in Congress for a total of 23. Seymour Stedman of Illinois is sworn in as the first Socialist Senator.

1927

• Following the failure of the Northern Expedition thanks to German intervention, two major Northern Warlord cliques, the Zhili clique and the Fengtian clique, go to war over control of Beijing. Despite Fengtian's initial gains, Zhili manages to turn the tide and defeat Fengtian by making a deal with the German Empire. Germany provides key strategic support to Zhili, while Zhili in return promises to restore the deposed Qing Emperor, Aisin-Gioro Puyi, due to Germany's monarchist stance. The Qing Empire is thus restored in China.
• King Ferdinand of Romania dies and is succeeded by his grandson Michael, after his son Carol is forced to renounce his claim to the throne. As Michael is still a minor he is effectively a puppet of the military who now have complete control over the country and its oil fields. Germany, dependent on their Romanian allies for oil, watches and does not intervene.
• November 21st. The Columbine Mine Massacre takes place in Colorado. Through the exercise of their newfound political power and direct action techniques on behalf of the Combined Syndicates of America, charges are brought against the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company. Only one man is convicted for the massacre, but the Syndicates and Socialists view this as a victory as American Courts have never ruled on the side of strikers or unions in such attacks before.

1928: Viva la Revolucion!

• November 6th. Republican Herbert Hoover easily defeats Governor of New York Al Smith in the Presidential Race. Norman Thomas runs for the Socialist Party and wins several Midwestern states while Jack Reed is elected Senator of New York in an upset victory. Huey Long becomes Governor of Louisiana using the slogan "Every man a King, but no one wears a crown," a phrase he borrows from William Jennings Bryan. He labels public utilities and the wealthy as "parasites" while promising increased government intervention and relief programs for the average Louisianan.
• Brazil holds the first elections of its New Republic. João Pessoa's Republican Party wins a landslide victory.
• The Central American revolt spreads to El Salvador. Guatemala and El Salvador merge to form the state of Centroamerica.
• Juan The Catfish Gomez is ousted from power in Venezuela after losing military support.
• Jesús Guajardo is elected President of Mexico, succeeding Adolfo de la Huerta.

1929: The Kingfish Forges His Crown

• Bolivia launches an attack against Paraguayan held positions to secure rumored oil fields beneath the soil. The conflict becomes known as the Chaco War.
• Huey Long forces the Louisiana State Government to adopt new populist programs, fulfilling multiple campaign promises. Louisianans take advantage of a free textbook program for children, night classes to ensure adult literacy, and a supply of cheap natural gas for the citizens of New Orleans. This is followed up with a massive public works program. Opponents to these programs find themselves harassed, demonized, and in some cases physically intimidated by Long himself on the floor of the statehouse.
• Norman Thomas becomes Mayor of New York City, the first Socialist to hold the position.

1930: Do or Die for the Kingfish

• Reichskanzler Afred von Tirpitz dies on March 6th. His contemporaries eulogize him as the most successful and popular chancellor in German history behind only Otto von Bismarck himself. He is replaced by Franz von Papen.
• March. Huey Long founds his own newspaper, the Louisiana Progress, to amplify his voice in the media. Long spreads word of his achievements to his allies and denounces his enemies in public print across the state. Companies compete for advertising space in the paper to avert the wrath of the Kingfish and secure government contracts.
• Long-running Catholic radio preacher Father Charles Coughlin begins attacking socialism, syndicalism, and the greed of the capitalist classes for creating the conditions that allowed these ideologies to flourish. He draws millions of listeners of all denominations.
• Long suffers his first defeat when the Louisiana Senate votes down a bond fundraiser, preventing him from creating a new road construction project. With his enemies forming a unified front against his populist initiatives, Long announces his intentions to run for United States Senate as a Democrat in September when a vacancy opens up, promising to resign from politics if he loses the election. Long wins the Senate seat with 57% of the vote. Surprising his allies and enemies, he opts to remain as Governor of Louisiana and leaves the Senate Seat completely vacant.

1931: Syndicalism Comes to the Americas

• In a reaction to the growing threat of the Centroamerican State, Nicaragua and Costa Rica unite to form the United Provinces.
• Father Coughlin is dropped from CBS Radio after he refuses to let them review his scripts. He begins to raise money directly from his listeners to create his own radio network.
• The Creditanstalt, Austria's largest bank, almost collapses after a brief but intense banking scandal. A major CS politician is implied to be among the guilty parties, putting the Christlichsoziale influence over Austrian politics in danger.
• Chile falls to a Syndicalist revolution after suffering a government bankruptcy and several years of economic instability. The Navy and Army lend support to the Syndicalist movement. Arturo Puga becomes head of state. Chile begins to help the Patagonian rebels.
• October. Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Cyr demands that Huey Long resign the position of Governor and enter the Senate to take the seat he won in the 1930 election. In response, Long summons the Louisiana National Guard to garrison the governor's mansion and defend himself from the what he labels a coup. After suing in the Supreme Court to get Cyr removed on a technicality, he appoints his friend Oscar K. Allen as the new Lieutenant Governor and future puppet. His power base secured, Long finally takes his seat as Senator and rules the state from Washington D.C.

1932: The Kingfish Denied

• Herbert Hoover is re-elected by the House of Representatives after the Socialists win enough states to deny any party an electoral majority. Denied the Democratic nomination during the race, Huey Long forms his own America First Party.
• Radical spiritualist and political theorist William Dudley Pelley comes out in support of Huey Long and his "Share Our Wealth" program in the wake of his electoral defeat. Pelley urges his followers to join a new para-militant organization he is founding, the "Silver Legion".
• The Grand Dragon of the branch of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, David Curtiss Stephenson, is arrested and eventually convicted on charges of rape. During the trial, the Klan's image as upholders of law and morality is gravely weakened as it is proven that Stephenson and many of his associates were in private womanizers and alcoholics. In the wake of the trial, many of the disaffected Klan members instead joins up with William Dudley Pelley's newly founded Silver Legion.
• In South Africa, Barry Hertzog wins the national election and declares South Africa to be a republic, formally leaving the Entente.
• Australasia begins construction of two new heavy ships- a battleship and an aircraft carrier, signalling regional military ambitions for the authoritarian democracy. Experts assume the projects will be completed by 1936.
• Otávio Mangabeira is elected President of Brazil.
• Emiliano Zapata is elected President of Mexico, succeeding Jesús Guajardo. Pancho Villa is appointed Foreign Minister of Mexico in an attempt to close the rift between Villa's syndicalism and Zapata's, and the people see a return to normalcy after decades of revolution and struggle. Decades of land reform finally bears fruit, allowing the growing of cash crops rather than mere subsistence farming.

1933

• The Chaco War ends in crushing Paraguayan victory. With Bolivia in utter disarray its republic dissolves into a dictatorship. The victory on the battlefield is paired with economic disaster as Paraguay is left crippled by war debts.
• The natural disaster that will go down in history as the Dust Bowl strikes the lower midwest of the United States, creating chaos and destitution in its wake as severe dust storms robs hundred of thousands of American farmers of their livelihood, leading to the death knell of countless rural communities. The storms reach all the way to D.C., and New England's winter snow is tinted red. Millions migrate, many heading west to California, desperately looking for jobs. The industrial-worker and miner focused Socialists find themselves unable to offer any effective response to the problem, especially with the displaced rural populations now competing for work in the big cities.

1934

• After years of planning, the America First Party is officially founded by Senator Huey Long. In the United States, the AFP grows rapidly amongst southern and rural populations. Father Coughlin endorses Huey Long wholeheartedly and directs his followers to vote for its members. He coins the slogan "All For Long or All Is Lost". William Dudley Pelley follows suit with his "Sliver Legion" paramilitaries becoming a fixture of the party. Long keeps them at a distance, but does not disavow or condemn him.
• Quentin Roosevelt, groomed as the Roosevelt family's heir after the death of Franklin in 1921, narrowly defeats Norman Thomas to become Governor of New York.
• After nine years, the American shipbuilding industry has fully recovered, and the US Navy resumes the Wilbur Plan with the construction of the Farragut and Porter-class destroyers.

1935

• The military government of Romania is violently ousted by one of the right-wing political groups they collaborated with, the fanatic nationalist Iron Guard. Their head, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, is installed as the new Leader (Conducător), while the young king Michael flees the country. Germany watches as their primary oil source stabilizes into a brutal military dictatorship.
• Marmaduke Grove, a former military man, is elected the second chairman of the Chilean Syndicalist Republic.
• Argentina's government is seized by the LPA in the so-called Christmas Coup.
• Quentin Roosevelt, spurred on by a desire to follow in his father Theodore's footsteps as a popular politician, seeks the nomination of the Republican party for 1936. While he fails to achieve the presidential nomination, he does manage to become the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for 1936.

1936: The Winds of Change

• On New Year's Day, as it becomes clear that the Canadians have zero interest in fighting the United States, the US Navy scraps the Wilbur Plan in favor of the Standley Plan. The plan doesn't call for a specific number of ships, but does reorganize the United States Navy to create a two-ocean navy that can fight the British and Japanese simultaneously. The Battle Fleet is renamed to the Atlantic Fleet, and the Scouting Fleet to the Pacific Fleet, while the Special Service Squadron is renamed Caribbean Station, and the Asiatic Fleet is renamed East Indies Station. Part of the plan also calls for the total phase-out of the Caldwell, Wickes, and Clemson-class destroyers, and the O and R-class submarines, as these ships and boats are seen as obsolete.
• In Early January, Alexander Kerensky, the President of the Russian Republic is shot and killed.The Alash Orda decides to use the political chaos in Russia to sever almost all their ties with Russia and declare independence. The PSR party wins the election and ensuing struggle between the Senate and Duma, but the Left-SRs later launch a coup and successfully bring about a socialist revolution, completing the work of the Red Army. Georgy Zhukov, one of Lenin's top generals during the October Revolution, takes power, reforming the Russian Republic into the United Soviet Socialist States, or Soviet Union. The USSR quickly joins the Third Internationale, causing much panic in Germany.
• George V, the last British King to have ruled from the home isles before their loss, dies in late January. His son, Prince Edward, is coronated as Edward VIII, only for him to abdicate in December in favor of his younger brother, George VI, the shortest-reigning monarch in British history.
• In early February, the Communards of France holds a general election, with the Jacobins winning. The old system is quickly swept away, anyone deemed a traitor to the state is executed, and the Commune of France becomes the totalist Proletariat Commune of France, colloquially known as Communard France.
• On Monday, the 3rd of February, the Berlin Stock Exchange, which has already been shaky for some time, suddenly plunges into free fall. This is a massive blow to the German economy, which has otherwise been seen as strong and steady, and the shockwave from the event, which goes down in history as Black Monday, causes widespread economic recession all over the world, with the German Reich's allies in the Reichspakt being hit especially hard. Most importantly, however, it undermines the world society's perception of the German Reich's superiority, and many world leaders begin to wonder if this is the beginning of the end of the German Hegemony in Europe.
• Hit hard by the economic aftershock of Black Monday, the Austrian Empire withdraws their military from the Italian Republic, as they can no longer afford the expenses of keeping up the local garrisons. This move leaves the republic politically independent once more.
• The United States attempts to demand debt repayments from Canada, which are swiftly refused. Hoover manages to reconcile with King Edward with a compromise stating that they would pay half now, then pay the rest after the British Isles were retaken. The AFP, SPA, and ODP view Hoover's compromise as weakness, and begin garnering more support. Instead, the United States starts scrapping old ships in reserve, mainly the Caldwell, Wickes, and Clemson-class destroyers and the O and R-class submarines; as new destroyers and submarines are built under the Standley Plan, older ships and boats are cycled through the reserve fleets and scrapped, all part of a larger effort to modernize the US Navy.
• In April, the Socialist Republic of Italy hosts the SRI Congress to elect a new leader. The three candidates, Giuseppe Giulietti, Carlo Rosselli, and Benito Mussolini, all have different opinions on various issues, and the election ends in a deadlock. Thoroughly fed-up with the socialists, Brigadier-General Giuseppe Garibaldi II launches a coup against th SRI, freeing Northern Italy from the grip of socialism. He later negotiates with the Kingdom of Sardinia to reunite under a constitutional monarchy. The Italian Federation to the north, and the Papal States and Kingdom of Two Sicilies to the south, both object to this, but over the next year, the new Italian Republic invades and conquers all three. Following the reunification of Italy, Amadeo I declares the rebirth of the Italian Empire, and sets his sights on reclaiming lost colonies.
• In a rather surprising turn of events, the Polish Regency Council elects Mindaugas III of Lithuania to take the throne of Poland, resulting in the bizarre reformation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The newly-reborn nation chooses to stay in the Reichspakt. Mendog decides to let the people vote for the Prime Minister. The social liberal party is elected and Mendog's position as a 'King of the People' is cemented.
• A debate in the Japanese Diet regarding the National Security Act has been raging. Some conservative members of the Diet fear that if the act isn't passed, radical elements in society will try to seize power. The Act is defeated by public opinion and the opposition. National populist Restorationist junior officers, seizing upon the government's failure to deal with radicals, launches a successful coup, and following Japan's Longest Winter, Emperor Hirohito takes absolute power and sets to work rebuilding Japan's military and naval strength in the hopes of conquering China and challenging American power in the Pacific.
• The civilian government of Cuba collapses and the totalists take power, bringing the revolution to the Caribbean. Hoover is fully ready to invade the island until Cuba joins the Third Internationale, causing the United States to back down for now.
• The TUC in Britain elects the Maximists led Oswald Mosley as Philip Snowden's successor. Mosley and the Maximists successfully consolidate power and turn the Union of Britain into a totalist state.
• In March, the Pope Pius XI dies of a heart attack. The College of the Cardinals convene to elect a successor, eventually electing John XXIII, nicknamed "The Socialist Pope" for his support of social democracy, an ideology rapidly gaining popularity around the world for being a happy medium between syndicalism and democracy.
• Democracy is maintained in Norway, and the social democratic NSA forms a ruling coalition with the social liberal Venstre, averting any fears of an end to Norwegian democracy. Norway later joins the Entente.
• The VF is elected in the Austrian general election, with the City of Vienna's strong showing being the deciding factor.
• Spain comes close to descending into civil war, until a snap election is called, and the Carlists win, narrowly averting catastrophe. King Alfonso XIII abdicate the throne after Archduke Karl Pius of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, Prince of Tuscany uses his stronger claim to the throne, becoming Carlos VIII. The Kingdom of Spain returns to being the Spanish Empire, and sets its sights on reclaiming its empire and building a modern Spanish Armada. Carlos even creates a new military alliance known as the Latin Union to challenge the Entente, Reichspakt, and Third Internationale. Portugal is the first to join the alliance, leaving the Entente to do so, and causing Canada to apply economic sanctions on Portugal for their perceived betrayal.
• Tensions rise as vastly different factions prepare for what will probably be the most violent and contentious election in the history of Brazil. Political talk is almost synonymous with heated arguments, and an air of ideological extremism looms over the nation's populace. Four very different visions for the country clash, in some places, even physically. João Mangabeira and the social democratic Esquerda Democratica win the 1936 elections. The democratic government remains despite fallout from President Mangabeira's meeting with a Chilean politician, concerns that are validated when the fires of revolution reach Brazil, causing the totalist Maximalists to overthrow the democratic government and turn the country into the Union of Brazil, causing much alarm amongst right-wing groups in the United States.
• The Great Heat Wave of 1936 lays heavy over the Northwest USA throughout the summer, becoming known as the Red Summer, it is easily the deadliest natural disaster in America of the 20th century.
• In November, the United States presidential election takes place. The single-most contentious election in the nation's history, the election ends with no party reaching the 270 vote threshold, causing the House of Representatives to become the decider, leading to much lobbying and backroom deals. In a stunning upset, former Nebraska senator George W. Norris of the social democratic Progressive Party (an outgrowth of Teddy Roosevelt's progressive wing of the Republican Party, and often given the derisive nickname "Splitters" by the Republicans) is chosen by the House; the Progressives also take the House and Senate for a trifecta, leaving the Democrats and Republicans at their mercy, the APF and SPA shellshocked, and the ODP infuriated.

1937: A Line in the Sand

• George Norris is officially inaugurated as the 32nd President of the United States. Murray and the ODP are infuriated, while Long and Reed willingly compromise with Norris, viewing social democracy as the best option. With both the Democrats and Republicans at the mercy of the Progressives, all of Norris' reforms are pushed through, including innumerable economic reforms under the Fair Deal, and even abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote being the sole factor in future presidential elections. Norris also promises to "bring fraudsters to justice", successfully doing so against the ODP and its associated groups such as the Red Riders and Ku Klux Klan. By May, the political crisis is deemed officially over, as Long and Reed willingly work with the Progressives and the ODP is dissolved following investigations. Norris quickly comes to be seen as "The Great Negotiator", with many contending to this day that he was the greatest American president ever, moreso than Abraham Lincoln, as Norris both stopped a civil war dead in its tracks and created the strongest economy in American history, one that is still roaring along as of 2025. The 1936 crisis is later deemed to be the closest the country has ever come to a second civil war, as declassified documents released in 2016 showed war plans drawn up by the SPA, AFP, and ODP, as well as a plan for Douglas MacArthur to seize power under War Plan White should Long, Reed, or Murray have been elected. Following the stabilization of the country and the miraculous revitalization of the economy, Norris, in response to most of the Americas falling to socialist revolutions, begins a massive military build-up, with new models of tanks and a new naval arms race with the Union of Britain including a large build-up of dreadnoughts on both sides. Isolationist voices in Congress are damned by the court of public opinion as being totalist sympathizers amidst a Red Scare, causing Reed to address the SPA to calm tensions and publicly oust all totalist members.
• Anti-German sentiment in Flanders-Wallonia reaches an all-time high. Adalbert sends in the army to quell protests caused by Black Monday. Political leaders go behind his back and, in secret, draft an independence referendum. On April 1, 1937, the results of the referendum are released, with the people voting overwhelmingly in favor of independence. Wilhlem II accepts the results of the referendum, and recalls a reluctant Adalbert to Berlin. Shortly thereafter, an election is held, but no party reaches a majority, allowing syndicalists to coup the government and creating the Belgian Syndicalist Commune. Germany, still in the midst of economic recovery from Black Monday, can do nothing but look on in horror.
• Economic crisis nearly renders the already unstable Ukraine asunder. Nikita Khrushchev and his Popular Front are invited into the government to help reorganise the agricultural sector. They later depose the king and establish the Socialist Republic of Ukraine. In response, the German Empire declares war on the newly formed republic. The German-Ukrainian War lasts only a week before the combined might of the Reichspakt overwhelms the Ukrainian army. A pro-German puppet government is installed in Kyiv to ensure no further syndicalist infiltration can take place in Ukraine.
• In the Fengtian Government, long considered a Japanese puppet in all but name, Zhang Zoulin is replaced by leadership more willing to work with Japan, after which monarchists in the concordia association establish Dynastic rule under the Japanese Imperial Family.
• An assassin shoots President Zapata of Mexico. The gunman is killed by the Presidential Guard, and Zapata is rushed to the hospital, where he succumbs to his wounds. Vicente Toledano and his clique seize the Palacio Nacional after Zapata's death and establish a totalist regime, using Lenin's original name for the ideology, communism. In 1938, Mexico joins the Third Internationale. In response, the United States scrambles to reactivate old infantry divisions that had been inactivated following the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1925, also providing the existing three infantry divisions (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) with trucks, and reorganizing the 1st Cavalry Division as the 1st Armored Division, fitting with the new Army doctrine of mobile warfare.
• Ireland holds its most contentious elections yet. A grand coalition of all democratic parties, led by the social democratic party Sinn Féin, dislodges Fine Gael, and Michael Collins resigns. This, along with the elections of John XXIII in the Vatican, the NSA in Norway, and George Norris in the United States, is considered by historians to be the beginning of the Social Democratic Revolution.
• In the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina abdicates the throne, and a social democratic republic is declared. The country joins the Entente in the wake of socialist revolutions in Sweden and Finland, giving the alliance a foothold on the continent.
• Despite the help of a strict fiscal economy, Hellmuth von Mücke is unable to stop the spread of unrest in the German East Asian territory of Indochina. The uprising succeeds in throwing the Germans out, and the Indochinese Union is formed. In an election, the Nationalists win a shocking victory over the other parties, all of them socialist, and the Indochinese Union joins the Co-Prosperity Sphere, spreading Japanese influence further.
• The 1937 German elections are tightly fought by multiple parties. In response to the spread of syndicalism around Europe, the Kaiser decides to appoint Kurt von Schleicher as the Reichskanzler, inevitably leading to the disbanding of the Reichstag and a more openly-imperialistic Germany.
• In National France, Maurice Janin resigns after a corruption scandal. Philippe Pétain meets with François de La Rocque to discuss the latter taking over, but Pétain is put off by de Le Rocque's demands, so he instead talks to the Far-Right Leagues. Charles Maurras asks Pétain to repeal the Law of Exile, which he accepts, also accepting the demands of Louis, Prince Napoleon and fully endorsing him. In a grand ceremony, Louis is coronated as Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte VI, the first Emperor of the French since his father, Napoleon III, was deposed in 1870. The Communards mock Napoleon for "clinging to the old ways", while the Kaiser is rather alarmed, King George is livid, President Norris sends more troops to Liberia, and Carlos VIII extends an invitation to the newly-reformed French Empire to join the Latin Union. Napoleon, who always had a low opinion of the British, readily accepts, causing a breakdown in relations with the British throne.
• By this time, Hermann Goering has almost unlimited power in Mittelafrika. However, tensions inside the colony grow faster than the Statthalter can imagine. Goering is removed after the corruption scandal. Fearing that Mittelafrika might fall under another tyrant, Germany chooses the Reformgruppe to reform the colony. After stabilizing the situation in Mittelafrika, the Reformgruppe decides to hold elections, but Wilhelm II rejects the candidacy of the winning party and appoints his own man - Dr. Rudolf Asmis, a famous lawyer. The Kaiser defends his choice by stating he didn't want to risk the candidate of the winning party being a syndicalist, demonstrating how paranoid the Germans have become since the revolutions in Russia, Ukraine, and Belgium.
• The Ausgleich of 1937 is held in Austria. The newly-empowered Karl I decides to end the dual rule and occupy Hungary, leading to a civil war. Austria also refuses to grant Slovenia autonomy or integration, enraging both Slovenes and the Illyrian Government. It becomes clear to all of Austria's subjects that the Double Eagle's feathers are shedding. The long, brutal Austro-Hungarian Civil War destabilizes Southern Europe and causes a horrific refugee crisis in Germany and North Italy.
• Supported by Communard France, Syndicalist revolutionaries in Romandie and Haute-Savoie move against the Swiss national government in what has come to be known as the "The Savoyard Crisis". In response to heightened tensions with Communard France, the Swiss government seeks foreign backing. The German Empire intervenes and sends an ultimatum to Paris to cease any diplomatic and undercover activities aimed against the territorial integrity of Switzerland. Afraid of a premature war with Germany, Communard France backs down. Switzerland joins the Reichspakt shortly thereafter, ending 122 years of Swiss neutrality.
• A failed royalist coup leads Vojvoda Bojović to instead side with influential republican figures, and Serbia officially becomes a republic.
• The Left Kuomintang have emerged victorious after the initial war against the Nanjing Clique. After the series of debates during the First Repatriation Congress, the Minquan faction secures a majority, and take over the Kuomintang to serve as the leaders of the republic. As a social democratic faction, this causes a massive thaw in relations with the United States, who begins supplying the Left Kuomintang with weapons, tanks, and planes.
• Shortly after the reunification, the Italian Empire joins the Latin Union, creating a Spanish hegemony in the Mediterranean Sea.

1938: A Decision to be Made

• Bulgaria, the titan of the peninsula, gained much in the Weltkrieg, uniting all Bulgarian lands and more. Though Serbia, Greece and Romania were defeated in the Weltkrieg, they have again come together, now under the banner of the Belgrade Pact. This alliance of Balkan states has presented an ultimatum to the Tsardom, demanding the restoration of pre-1914 Balkan borders. Bulgarian refusal will plunge the region into conflict yet again. Bulgaria ignores the ultimatum, and the Balkans once again plunges into war. During the war, the Ottoman Empire decides to press its claim and demand Western Thrace, and declares war on Bulgaria when it refuses to hand the territory. Ultimately, the combined might of the Belgrade Pact and Ottomans is too much, and Bulgaria loses the contested territory. In the aftermath, Bulgaria is taken over by the Absolutists, and joins Austria's power bloc, the Donau Adriabund. With half of Europe now at war in one form or another, the United States accelerates its military build-up, rolling out the new M3 Lee medium tank a year ahead of schedule.
• Following a meeting of unions, the Central American nations of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicuragua, and Honduras agree, all of them under one form of socialist government or another, agree to merge into a single totalist nation, Centroamerica, which is quickly accepted into the Third Internationale. In response, the United States begins deploying troops on the border with Mexico to dissuade any invasion, and also begins constructing massive fortifications.
• Fearing a syndicalist threat, Radasłaŭ Astroŭski, with the support of the Germans, overthrows the Sojm. Unable to find support, he cedes power to Vatslaw Lastowski, who turns White Ruthenia into a nationalist agrarian-corporatist country named Kryvia. The country immediately leaves the Reichspakt, to which Germany responds with a crushing invasion, removing Lastowski from power in favor of a German cabinet.
• A revolt against Alexander Kolchak commences in Transamur. Sergei Voytsekhovskiy takes power and allows free elections to take place in Transamur after the successful coup. The People's Far East Party wins the elections. The newly-renamed Siberian Federation applies for Entente membership, but this never takes place after a swift invasion by the Soviet Union, finally reunifiying Russia.
• When in 1935 rumours surfaced that Roca may favor ending the conflict by abandoning the fight with the FOP, outrage swept the nation, enabling the Liga Patriotica under Manual Carlas to launch the 'Christmas Coup'. Supported by the Navy and various military elements, Carlas overthrew the government on Christmas 1935 and took control over the Capital Region. On the first of January 1936, the future of the Carlas regime is uncertain. Outside the Buenos Aires capital region and small inland provinces, the new government wields little influence. Support from the ARA or 'Argentinean Armada' is guaranteed but many Army officers doubt Carlas' potential. After a bloody struggle, the Army scores a decisive victory at Rosario, sending forces loyal to Carlas into retreat. As Ramirez and the Army march towards the Presidential Residence, Manual Carlas himself disappears, either dead by his own hand or having fled to Uruguay. After taking the captital and restoring order to the country, Ramirez decides to restore democracy and hold elections. The social liberal UCR wins the subsequent elections. Several weeks later, Argentina applies for Entente membership; Canada refuses due to Argentina's refusal to give up the Falkland Islands, leading Argentina to remain neutral.
• The Great Middle Eastern War breaks out between the Ottoman Empire and Sultanate of Egypt. Early in the war, the Ottomans accept a military mission from Germany, which ultimately takes over the Ottomans in secret and rules from the shadows after having Mustafa Kemel discretely killed. Publicly, the Ottoman Empire is still seen as an independent nation, the truth not coming out until after the collapse of the German Empire in 1991.
• The fires of revolution spread further in the New World, with the West Indies Federation falling to a totalist regime. The Union of Britain and Communard France begin stationing ships in the Caribbean, as a result, causing the United States to beef up the size of the Caribbean Station with older aircraft carriers replaced in the Battle Fleets by the newer Yorktown-class carriers.

1939: Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Dogs of War!

• The socialist party wins the 1939 Venezuelan elections. The United States is mere minutes from activating War Plan Violet (invasion of Venezuela), when word comes in that Venezuela has joined the Third Internationale.
• The Fourth Balkan War ends with Bulgaria utterly defeated and humiliated. Serbia, Greece, and Romania succeed in restoring the pre-1914 Balkan borders, and the Ottoman Empire successfully takes Western Thrace. Afterwards, the Belgrade Pact goes its separate ways, with Serbia remaining neutral, Greece eventually joining the Donau-Adriabund, and Romania eventually rejoining the Entente, giving the latter alliance a firm foothold in the Balkans. Bulgaria, meanwhile, sees the absolutists coup the weak government, and the country joins the Donau-Adriabund.
• September 1: Communard France issues the Alsace Ultimatum, stating that unless Germany cede Alsace-Lorraine by September 3, a state of war would exist between the two nation. Germany immediately deploys forces to the border with France. September 3 comes without any word from Berlin, which Paris takes as refusal. At noon Central European Time, Communard France declares war on the German Empire, the first shot being a German freighter sunk by a Communard destroyer. The rest of the Reichspakt (consisting of the Ottoman Empire, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, United Baltic Duchy, White Ruthenia, Switzerland, Mittelafrika, German East Asia, the Aufsichtsrat der Ostasiatischen Generalverwaltung, and the German puppet of Ukraine) and Third Internationale (consisting of the Union of Britain, United Soviet Socialist States, Swedish Commune, Finnish People's Republic, Belgian People's Republic, Union of Brazil, Socialist Republic of Venezuela, West Indies Union, the United Mexico States, and Centroamerica) follow suit. The Second Weltkrieg had begun.
• The British establish a blockade of the Straits of Denmark, which the German Hochseeflotte quickly breaks due to the British keeping the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow until the High Seas Fleet has been whittled down a bit.
• Germany puts Fall Gelb ("Case Yellow"), the plan for invading Communard France, into action; this plan had existed since 1924. The Western Front quickly reforms and is, unsurprisingly, an unmoving stalemate. In the interwar years, Communard France had built the Maginot Line, a massive defensive line with a network of trenches and fortifications; Germany responded by building the Westwall. Attempts to bypass the Maginot Line via Belgium are unsuccessful when it is discovered that the line extends all the way to the North Sea. Attempts to bypass it through Switzerland are also unsuccessful due to heavy artillery fire.
• German U-boats set to work attacking enemy shipping. However, since the First Weltkrieg, anti-submarine technology has advanced, and Hartmann's wolfpack suffers horrendous losses to British destroyers equipped with mortar launchers that allow destroyers to launch their depth charges from greater distances than before.
• December 9: Mexican bombers unexpectedly violate American airspace and bomb the port facilities at Corpus Christi, sinking several ships and killing hundreds of civilians. Plutarco Calles ordered this attack in direct defiance of orders from Communard French leader Maurice Thorez NOT to attack the United States. Several hours later, Calles issues an ultimatum to the United States saying that a larger attack on the naval base at San Diego would follow unless all territory taken after the Mexican-American War in 1848 was returned to Mexico. The American response comes not with words, but with artillery fire, signalling the start of the Second Mexican-American War. President Norris authorizes the activation of War Plan Green (the plan for war with Mexico). 48 army divisions stationed at the border (40 motorized infantry divisions and eight armored divisions made up of a mix of light and medium tanks), under the command of General George S. Patton, immediately blitz the defenders, taking much ground in the first day of fighting and reaching Cuidad Jimenez within 24 hours.
• December 10: The United States applies for membership in the Entente, to which Canada immediately agrees. All at once, the Union of Britain and Communard France shudder. Fighting a war with the Reichspakt was difficult, but doable. Fighting a war with the Entente was harder. Fighting a war with the Entente plus the United States was a suicide mission.
• December 11: At an emergency meeting with the other Latin Union leaders in Gibraltar, Napoleon VI requests a vote for a joint declaration of war against the Third Internationale. All four are in favor of doing so, to put a permanent end to the syndicalist menace. Shortly thereafter, an Imperial French submarine sinks a Communard French troop transport, and Spanish and Italian troops at their respective borders with France open fire, bringing the Latin Union into the Second Weltkrieg.
• December 12: After a three-day lightning war, American forces overrun Mexico City.
• December 15: The German High Seas Fleet meets the British Grand Fleet for the first time in the war, the result being inconclusive.

1940: The Sleeping Giant Awakens

• January: The Battle of Britain commences, with nightly bombing raids carried out by American and Canadian bombers based in Ireland. American, Canadian, and Australasian naval bombers based in Norway strike at British and Communard French ships in the North Sea, but fail to make much headway. The same day, War Plan Red (the plan for war with the Union of Britain) and War Plan Blue (the plan for war with Communard France) are activated in the United States.
• January 6: Believing the United States to be preoccupied with Europe, Japan commences the Nanshin-ron ("Southern Expansion Doctrine") to attack Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Both the Entente and Reichspakt are targeted by this, and the Second Weltkrieg expands into the Pacific. The United States immediately activates War Plan Red-Orange, the plan for a two-front war with Japan and Britain.
• January 8: The German East Asian Navy suffers a crushing defeat to the IJN Combined Fleet, losing all but a few destroyers. This victory emboldens the Japanese to try and lure the American Pacific Fleet into a "decisive battle".
• January 9: The Left Kuomintang, renamed the Republic of China in 1938, begins invading the Legation Cities using American equipment. American naval forces immediately respond to this betrayal with offshore bombardment of Chinese supply lines. War Plan Yellow is activated.
• January 12: The Bharatiya Commune launches a surprise attack on the Dominion of Delhi, both it and the Union of Burma having joined the Third Internationale hours earlier. The Princely Federation, reformed as the Indian Empire by Osman Ali Khan I, also joins the melee, having joined the Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Kingdom of Siam, also a Co-Prosperity Sphere member, attacks the Dutch East Indies.
• January 13: American forces stationed in the Philippines invade China through the Legation Cities of Macau and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the United States and Canada commence unrestricted submarine warfare against British and Communard French shipping in the Atlantic. Anti-submarine efforts also commence to ensure safe passage for American and Canadian troops to Ireland.
• January 20: A naval landing is executed on the Japanese-held island of Formosa. The United States, Canada, and Australasia commence unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan.
• January 22: Hartmann's wolfpack ceases operations earlier than anticipated due to grievous losses from British destroyers. An attempted German naval landing on Dunkirk originating from Ostend ends in a massacre when British submarines catch out the transports and sink 63% of the them. By this time, all belligerents have fully shifted to war economies.
• February 2: After the two-month siege of San Jose, Centroamerica surrenders to the United States. With Central America secure, American forces move on Venezuela. Colombia, which had fallen under a dictatorship, is also invaded. Both nations quickly fall.
• February 3-12: The Entente commences Operation: Fairy, a massive bombing campaign of Northern and East Midlands England, specifically targeting industry in and around Sheffield and Lincoln. The nine-day campaign produces mixed results, as British fighters intercept many bombers, but the key steelworks east of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire is virtually destroyed.
• February 5: A Japanese naval landing pushes the Entente off of Formosa, marking the first major defeat for the United States in the war.
• February 6: American and Canadian forces commence an island-hopping campaign in the Caribbean, which proceeds quickly due to West Indies Union troops being woefully underequipped. British and Communard French troops in the Caribbean are also quickly forced to surrender after the Entente essentially blockades the region.
• February 7: Japan commences the Nanshin-ron campaign in earnest, starting with invasions of the Batanes to serve as a forward operating base for the larger invasion of the Philippines. Air and sea forces launch from the newly-liberated Formosa and assault the islands, the US Asiatic Fleet being too far away to intervene.
• February 13-25: The fighting between the Ottomans and Egyptians escalates, and the Egyptians make an enemy out of the Entente when they fire on a Romanian cargo ship near Alexandria, thus causing the Great Middle Eastern War to blend into the Second Weltkrieg.
• March 5: The Austrian Civil War comes to a close, with Austria as the victor. It fully subsumes Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, Montenegro, and Kosovo to form a super-state known as the Danubian Federation. With this victory, Austria is declared a great power.
• March 14: Chile declares war on Argentina. Patagonia and Uruguay follow suit several hours later.
• March 17-May 4: Until now, Spain has been unusually quiet. This changes when Spanish and Portugese troops commence the Pyrenees Campaign to open up a second front in Communard France. The campaign is ultimately a failure, due to Communard French troops being well-trained in mountain warfare.
• March 29: The Princely Federation surrenders, bringing a massive portion of India back under Dominion control. The same day, the Soviet Union launches a massive invasion of Mongolia.
• March 30: Immediately after defeating the Princely Federation, the Dominion of Delhi next turns its sights on Madras, a small breakaway nation.
• April 2: Denmark closes the Danish Straits to all ships, hoping in vain that it will bring an end to the war. Germany responds by launching Operation Weserübung to force the straits back open. The German invasion of Denmark lasts for about six hours, before the country capitulates.
• April 4: The newly-formed Danubian Federation declares war on Communard France, bringing the Donau-Adriabund, which also includes Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania, into the war.
• April 6: The Battle of Corsica takes place between Imperial French and Communard French naval forces, marking the first major fleet action of the war in Europe. The battle ends in a major victory for Communard France, losing three cruisers and six destroyers while the Imperial French lose most of their cruisers and several battleships, though the Communard battleship Dunkerque, which received serious damage during the battle, is intercepted and sunk by the American submarine USS Gudgeon while returning to port for repairs.
• April 7: The Bharatiya Commune surrenders to the Dominion of Delhi, reunifying India at long last.
• April 12: After a hard campaign, the Entente reach Changsha, and begin the long, arduous push towards Beijing.
• April 13-20: Germany attempts to land paratroopers behind the Maginot Line to carry out a backhand blow. The paratroopers successfully land, but are quickly surrounded and captured. Several more paradrops occur in the following days, but are just as unsuccessful.
• May 3: Norwegian forces invade Sweden and Finalnd.
• May 20: Mongolia capitulates to the Soviet Union after a lightning war operation, leaving the Russian State in a position to threaten China should it so choose. Despite this, Zhukov chooses not to, fearing directly confronting American troops after their effortless conquest of Latin America.
• June 19: The Reichspakt, after months of holding back Soviet troops, commence Operation: Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.
• July 6: The Halifax Conference takes place. During the conference, the Entente, Reichspakt, and Latin Union agree to cooperate in defeating the Third Internationale and Co-Prosperity Sphere, under the following conditions:
  • Imperial France will retract its claim on Alsace-Lorraine
  • All former Spanish, French and Portugese colonies in the Americas shall be returned to them (the Spanish reduce their demands after the United States refuse to give up Mexico and Central America, and Canada demands Belize back)
  • Germany will return Madagascar to the French Empire
• July 10: The United States launches an amphibious invasion of Cuba, securing the island nation in hours.
• July 20: The Battle of Penzance takes place. The British Grand Fleet and Communard French Atlantic Fleet sallies forth to meet what it believes is the German High Seas Fleet moving through the English Channel to destroy villages along the coast. This ends up being based on false information planted by American agents, as both fleets meet not only the High Seas Fleet, but the American Great White Fleet and Canadian Battle Fleet. In the ensuing battle, the Communard French and Canadian fleets are forced to retreat, and the German fleet breaks off to pursue the the Communard French fleet, leaving the battle down to the American and British fleets. After 12 hours, the American Great White Fleet emerges battered but triumphant, losing two battleships and numerous cruisers and destroyers, while the British Grand Fleet is decimated, losing six of its battleships, and innumerable cruisers and destroyers. The battle is the largest fleet action in history, and not only signals the climax of the Dreadnought Age, but the end of British naval dominance and the beginning of American naval supremacy.
• July 23-27: The US Great White Fleet happens upon the Communard French Atlantic Fleet en route to repairs at Toulon, engaging in a four-day chase until cornering the fleet at the Strait of Gibraltar, where the fleet is caught between the Great White Fleet and the reborn Spanish Armada, ultimately destroying the entire fleet. The Battle of Gibraltar deals a fatal blow to Communard French naval power, allowing Entente and Latin Union submarines to operate in the Bay of Biscay and Mediterranean Sea with impunity.
• Throughout the month of August, the Great White Fleet continues picking off British destroyer and cruiser squadrons, allowing American and German submarines free reign to wreak havoc on British merchant shipping.
• September 2: The USS Trout torpedoes and sinks the British ocean liner RMS Aquitania, an ex-Cunard liner. The sinking represents the largest loss of civilian life at sea during the Second Weltkrieg. The action is also controversial due to the submarine's crew allegedly taking shots at lifeboats with the deck gun, which is illegal under international maritime law; to this day, whether this actually happened has never been proven, as survivors and crew alike gave wildly different testimonies.
• September 13: Reichspakt forces reach Smolensk.
• September 21: An American carrier group launches a large air raid on Vladivostok, aiming to kneecap Soviet (and by extension, Third Internationale) naval power in the Pacific. The attack is a complete success, with all Soviet battleships in the Pacific sunk at anchorage.
• October 4: The Great White Fleet meets the Grand Fleet again, this time near Dover. The Battle of Dover proves to be the final major fleet action in Europe, and the final end of the Grand Fleet, as it is cornered against the coast and sunk.
• October 12: With the elimination of the British and Communard French battle fleets, the German High Seas Fleet shifts to a commerce raiding role, while the Great White Fleet is shifted to the Pacific, American naval presence in the Atlantic being limited to destroyers, submarines, and auxiliaries.
• November 5: The 1940 United States Presidential Election is held. To the surprise of no one, George Norris easily wins re-election. Subsequent to this, the American political establishment undergoes a massive shift, ushering in the Fifth Party System (also known as the "Fair Deal Party System"). Under this system, the Democratic, Republican, and America First Parties merge to form the centrist New Whig Party, and the less-radical elements of the SPA join the Progressives. The ODP, meanwhile, fades into history.

1941: The British Reckoning

• The third year of the Second Weltkrieg begins with early preparations for the Entente operation to invade the British Home Islands from Ireland, known as Operation: Sea Lion.
• Throughout early-mid 1941, Japan sweeps through Indonesia, the East Indies, and launches a naval invasion of Indochina. Several air raids are launched towards Darwin in Australia, but are all intercepted by carrier-based American fighters.
• Without any appreciable ASW capabilities beyond naval bombers, Entente and German submarines score huge against British shipping throughout 1941. It is estimated that by the end of the war, only 4% of the Union of Britain's pre-war merchant tonnage was still afloat, most notably the ocean liners RMS Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. By October, allied submarines are having trouble finding targets worthy of a torpedo, with small fishing trawlers sunk using deck guns or by destroyers if it can be helped. British industry, starved of resources from countries that had stayed neutral, undergoes a slow rundown.
• February 3: Entente and Latin Union forces invade Brazil.
• May 1: Operation: Sea Lion is launched with naval landings along the coast of Wales. An American landing at Holyhead establishes a suitable beachhead. In the ensuing months, American, Canadian, and Brazilian forces slowly but surely push out of Wales along the Stanley Embankment (despite British attempts to blow it up) and into the Midlands, eventually capturing Liverpool and Manchester. The invasion force splits up, with half pushing north to take Scotland, and the other half pushing south to take London. An intense tug-of-war ensues.
• June 4: Kaiser Wilhelm II dies of pulmonary embolism exacerbated by wartime stress. His son, Wilhelm III, is coronated. Under Wilhelm III, Germany becomes more openly-imperialistic, to the point the nation comes to be considered a paternal autocratic state instead of an authoritarian democracy.
• July 23: Following suspected syndicalist activity on the Arabian Peninsula, the Entente invades the Sultanate of Najd, Oman, Muscat, and Yemen. All four nations fall in weeks, and it is discovered that there were indeed plans for a syndicalist uprising in Riyahd.
• September 8: The Siege of St. Petersburg begins when the Reichspakt severs the last road to the city. Although Soviet forces manage to open a narrow land corridor to the city on January 18, 1942, the Red Army is unable to lift the siege, and the city falls on February 20, 1942. The blockade becomes one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, and it was possibly the costliest siege in history due to the number of casualties which were suffered throughout its duration. In the 21st century, some historians have classified it as a genocide due to the systematic starvation and intentional destruction of the city's civilian population, though the German Empire vehemently denied any such atrocities.
• November 17: Entente forces enter Birmingham, engaging in house-to-house fighting. They find themselves aided by pro-royalist partisans. Upon receiving news of Birmingham's fall, civil unrest grows in London.
• November 28: After months of intense fighting, Entente and Latin Union forces finally reach the Brazilian capital of Brasília, putting the city under siege.
• December 7: Inspired by the attack on Vladivostok, Japanese aircraft launch a massive surprise copycat attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking the battleships Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah, along with damaging many other battleships, three cruisers, four destroyers, and five auxiliaries.
• December 25: After a lightning war down the former LNER East Coast Main Line, American and Canadian forces reach London. The Siege of London begins, as Oswald Mosely begins making plans to use various landmarks as booby traps, though pro-royalist partisans sabotage these plans.

1942: Mosely's Last Stand

• February 10-May 8: The Philippines campaign. The Japanese launches the invasion by sea from Formosa, over 200 miles (320 km) north of the Philippines. The defending forces outnumber the Japanese 3-2 but are a mixed force of non-combat experienced regular, national guard, constabulary and newly created Entente units, with more-experienced troops engaged in Mainland China. The Japanese use first-line troops at the outset of the campaign, and by concentrating their forces, they swiftly overrun most of Luzon during the first month. The Japanese high command, believing that they have won the campaign, made a strategic decision to advance by a month their timetable of operations in Borneo and Indonesia and to withdraw their best division and the bulk of their airpower in early March. That, coupled with the defenders' decision to withdraw into a defensive holding position in the Bataan Peninsula and also the defeat of three Japanese battalions at the "Battle of the Points" and "Battle of the Pockets", enable the Americans and Filipinos to hold out for four more months. After the Japanese failure to penetrate the Bataan defensive perimeter in April, the Japanese conduct a 40-day siege. The crucial large natural harbor and port facilities of Manila Bay are denied to the Japanese until May. While the Dutch East Indies operations are unaffected this heavily hinders the Japanese offensive operations in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, buying time for the U.S. Navy to make plans to engage the Japanese at Guadalcanal instead of much further east.
• March 16: The Siege of Brasília is lifted, and the Union of Brazil surrenders.
• By early 1942, Entente forces have finally made it to Beijing, and capture the Chinese leadership. The Republic of China officially surrenders. In the following months, the Entente turns its attention to Fengtian and the Korean peninsula, with American forces rapidly taking Seoul within weeks of taking Beijing, while Indian and Australasian forces head north towards Manchuria.
• In April 1942, a socialist uprising takes place in Persia, funded by Communard France to invade India and divide the Entente's attention. The Entente invades Persia first, and restores the previous government. Persia chooses to remain neutral.
• In May 1942, the Siege of London is broken, and American and Canadian forces storm into the city. In an often-reproduced photograph, American soldiers hoist the Star-Spangled Banner over Buckingham Palace, a sort of symbolic revenge for the Burning of Washington in 1814. After the photo is taken, the flag is quickly replaced by the Union Jack, signalling that the royals have reclaimed their birthright. Upon London's capture, Mosely and the TUC are captured, and all remaining British forces stand down. War Plan Red-Orange is deactivated and replaced by War Plan Orange.
• May 4-8: The Battle of the Coral Sea takes place. The battle is historically significant as the first action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other and the first in which the opposing ships neither sighted nor fired directly upon one another, in stark contrast to the massive fleet actions in Europe. In an attempt to strengthen their defensive position in the South Pacific, the Japanese decide to invade and occupy Port Moresby (in New Guinea) and Tulagi (in the southeastern Solomon Islands). The plan, Operation Mo, involves several major units of Japan's Combined Fleet. They include two fleet carriers and a light carrier to provide air cover for the invasion forces, under the overall command of Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue. The U.S. learns of the Japanese plan through signals intelligence and sends two U.S. Navy carrier task forces and a joint Australasian-American cruiser force to oppose the offensive, under the overall command of U.S. Admiral Frank J. Fletcher. On May 3-4, Japanese forces successfully invades and occupied Tulagi, although several of their supporting warships are sunk or damaged in surprise attacks by aircraft from the U.S. fleet carrier Yorktown. Now aware of the presence of enemy carriers in the area, the Japanese fleet carriers advance towards the Coral Sea with the intention of locating and destroying the Allied naval forces. On the evening of May 6, the two carrier forces come within 70 nmi (81 mi; 130 km) of each other, unbeknownst to anyone. On May 7, both sides launch airstrikes. Each mistakenly believe they are attacking their opponent's fleet carriers, but are actually attacking other units, with the U.S. sinking the Japanese light carrier Shōhō and the Japanese sinking a U.S. destroyer and heavily damaging a fleet oiler, which is later scuttled. The next day, each side finds and attacks the other's fleet carriers, with the Japanese fleet carrier Shōkaku damaged, the U.S. fleet carrier Lexington critically damaged and later scuttled, and the fleet carrier Yorktown damaged. With both sides having suffered heavy losses in aircraft and carriers damaged or sunk, the two forces disengage and retire from the area. Because of the loss of carrier air cover, Inoue recalls the Port Moresby invasion fleet with the intention of trying again later. Although a victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk, the battle proves to be a strategic victory for the Entente in several ways. The battle marks the first time since the start of the war that a major Japanese advance has been checked by the Entente. More importantly, the Japanese fleet carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku, the former damaged and the latter with a depleted aircraft complement, are unable to participate in the Battle of Midway the following month, but Yorktown participates on the Entente side, which makes for rough parity in aircraft between the adversaries and contributes significantly to the U.S. victory. The severe losses in carriers at Midway prevent the Japanese from reattempting to invade Port Moresby by sea and help prompts their ill-fated land offensive over the Kokoda Track.
• June 4-7: The Battle of Midway takes place. The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeat an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while naval historian Craig Symonds called it "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, Tsushima Strait, Penzance, Dover, and Gibraltar as both tactically decisive and strategically influential". Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway is part of an overall "barrier" strategy to extend Japan's defensive perimeter, in response to the short-lived American occupation of Formosa. This operation is also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself. The plan is undermined by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions. Most significantly, American cryptographers are able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to prepare its own ambush. Four Japanese and three American aircraft carriers participate in the battle. The four Japanese fleet carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, and Hiryū, part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier—are sunk, as is the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The U.S. loses the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann, while the carriers USS Enterprise and USS Hornet survive the battle fully intact. After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's capacity to replace its losses in materiel (particularly aircraft carriers) and men (especially well-trained pilots and maintenance crewmen) rapidly become insufficient to cope with mounting casualties, while the United States' massive industrial and training capabilities make losses far easier to replace. The Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War. The battle also marks the end of the Dreadnought Age and the beginning of the Carrier Age.
• American forces, having fully occupied the Korean peninsula, begin launching massive air raids upon Honshu. Around the same time, Sweden and Finland both surrender to the Entente.
• In the United States, a top-secret project is commenced, known as the Manhattan Project. Around the same time, Germany commences the Damocles Project. Both projects have the same endgoal.
• Planning for the invasion of Communard France by the Entente commences. With most Communard forces tied up at the Western Front, defenses along the northern coast are predicted to be light.
• August 7: The Guadalcanal campaign commences. Entente forces, predominantly United States Marines, land on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands, with the objective of using Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases in supporting a campaign to eventually capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain. The Japanese defenders, who had occupied those islands since May 1942, are outnumbered and overwhelmed by the Entente, who capture Tulagi and Florida, as well as the airfield – later named Henderson Field – that was under construction on Guadalcanal. Surprised by the Entente offensive, the Japanese make several attempts between August and November to retake Henderson Field. Three major land battles, seven large naval battles (five nighttime surface actions and two carrier battles), and almost daily aerial battles culminate in the decisive Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in early November, with the defeat of the last Japanese attempt to bombard Henderson Field from the sea and to land enough troops to retake it. In December, the Japanese abandon their efforts to retake Guadalcanal, and evacuated their remaining forces by February 7 1943, in the face of an offensive by the U.S. Army's XIV Corps, with the Battle of Rennell Island, the last major naval engagement, serving to secure protection for the Japanese troops to evacuate safely. The campaign follows the successful Entente defensive actions at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway in May and June, 1942. Along with the battles at Milne Bay and Buna–Gona, the Guadalcanal campaign marks the Entente's transition from defensive operations to offensive ones and effectively seize the strategic initiative in the Pacific theater from the Japanese.
• October 26: The Battle of Moscow ends after eight months with a Reichspakt victory. Zhukov had evacuated well in advance, but he is still haunted by the image of the German flag being raised over the Kremlin. Another famous image to come out of the battle is of German troops having drunken celebrations in the heart of Red Square.
• December 25: The Soviet Union formally surrenders to the Reichspakt, and Zhukov and his inner circle are found in Nizhny Novgorod and arrested. The horrors of Zhukov's regime are exposed to the world, with such atrocities as massive camps where anyone who isn't Slavic is systematically exterminated using gas chambers, firing squads, and being overworked to death. For the rest of the Second Weltkrieg, Zhukov will rot in prison. With the eastern flank now secured, all attention turns to the Western Front.

1943: Japan on the Backfoot

• A large portion of Entente submarines are shifted to the Pacific. Many crews have a hard time adjusting, as the waters of the Pacific are much calmer than the rough Atlantic waters, though just as many find the Pacific much easier to fight in, with calmer waters allowing for better spotting.
• Much of early 1943 is dominated by small naval skirmishes between German and Communard French ships, as well as hunting down what remains of the Union of Britain's navy. Entente and Latin Union forces also secure most of South America aside from neutral Argentina, with Chile stubbornly holding out.
• June: In the South Western Pacific, the Entente seizes the strategic initiative for the first time during the War and in June 1943, launches Operation Cartwheel, a series of amphibious invasions to recapture the Solomon Islands and New Guinea and ultimately isolate the major Japanese forward base at Rabaul. Following the Japanese Invasion of Salamaua–Lae in March, 1943, Cartwheel begin with the Salamaua–Lae campaign in Northern New Guinea in April 1943, which is followed in June to October by the New Georgia campaign, in which the Entente used the Landings on Rendova, Drive on Munda Point and Battle of Munda Point to secure a secretly constructed Japanese airfield at Munda and the rest of New Georgia Islands group. Landings from September until December secure the Treasury Islands and land Entente troops on Choiseul, Bougainville and Cape Gloucester. These landings prepare the way for Nimitz's island-hopping campaign towards Japan.
• In November 1943, US Marines sustain high casualties when they overwhelm the 4,500-strong garrison at Tarawa. This helps the Entente to improve the techniques of amphibious landings, learning from their mistakes and implementing changes such as thorough pre-emptive bombings and bombardment, more careful planning regarding tides and landing craft schedules, and better overall coordination; this experience becomes especially important in the lead-up to the invasion of Communard France. Operations on the Gilberts are followed in late-January and mid-February 1944 by further, less costly, landings on the Marshall Islands.

1944: Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys

• In February 1944, the US Navy's fast carrier task force, during Operation Hailstone, attacks the major naval base of Truk. Although the Japanese move their major vessels out in time to avoid being caught at anchor in the atoll, two days of air attacks result in significant losses to Japanese aircraft and merchant shipping. The Japanese are forced to abandon Truk and are now unable to counter the Americans on any front on the perimeter. Consequently, the Japanese retain their remaining strength in preparation for what they hope would be a decisive battle, though many in the IJN are skeptical after the American Great White Fleet massacred the British Grand Fleet at Penzance and Dover. The Japanese then develop a new plan, known as A-GO. A-GO envisions a decisive fleet action that would be fought somewhere from the Palaus to the Western Carolines. It was in this area that the newly formed Mobile Fleet along with large numbers of land-based aircraft, would be concentrated. If the Americans attacked the Marianas, they would be attacked by land-based planes in the vicinity. Then the Americans would be lured into the areas where the Mobile Fleet could defeat them.
• On March 12 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directs the occupation of the Northern Marianas, specifically the islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. A target date is set for June 15. All forces for the Marianas operation are to be commanded by Admiral Spruance. The forces assigned to his command consist of 535 warships and auxiliaries together with a ground force of three and a half Marine divisions and one reinforced Army division, a total of more than 127,500 troops. For the Americans, the Marianas operation provides the following benefits: the interruption of the Japanese air pipeline to the south; the development of advanced naval bases for submarine and surface operations; the establishment of airfields to base B-29s from which to bomb the Japanese Home Islands; the choice among several possible objectives for the next phase of operations, which will keep the Japanese uncertain of American intentions. It is also hoped that this penetration of the Japanese inner defense zone, which is a little more than 1,250 miles (2,010 km) from Tokyo, might force the Japanese fleet out for a decisive engagement against the combined Great White Fleet and Fast Carrier Task Force. The ability to plan and execute such a complex operation in the space of 90 days is indicative of Entente logistical superiority.
• Starting in April, the Germans begin using a new type of missile against the French, a ballistic missile known as the V-2. The new weapon not only causes major damage to population centers in Western France, it also represents a major advancement in missile technology, as well as foreshadowing the coming Space Race. Simultaneously, the Entente invades Egypt.
• June 6: The Normandy landings begin. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation begins the liberation of France from the totalists. Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Entente conducts a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Communards as to the date and location of the main Entente landings. The weather on D-Day is far from ideal, and the operation has to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would mean a delay of at least two weeks, as the invasion planners have requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that means only a few days each month are deemed suitable. Maurice Thorez places Jean de Lattre de Tassigny in command of Communard forces and of developing fortifications along the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an Allied invasion. President Norris places Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower in command of Entente forces. The amphibious landings are preceded by extensive aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 American, British, Imperial French, and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight. Entente infantry and armoured divisions begin landing on the coast of France at 06:30. The target 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast is divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Strong winds blow the landing craft east of their intended positions, particularly at Utah and Omaha. The men land under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore is mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous. Casualties are heaviest at Omaha, with its high cliffs. At Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns are cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold are disabled using specialised tanks. The Entente fails to achieve any of their goals on the first day. Carentan, Saint-Lô, and Bayeux remain in Communard hands, and Caen, a major objective, is not captured until July 21. Only two of the beaches (Juno and Gold) are linked on the first day, and all five beachheads are not connected until June 12; however, the operation gained a foothold that the Entente gradually expanded over the coming months. Communard casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Entente casualties were documented for at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead. A later inquiry stated that battleships should have been used to clear the beaches before sending in infantry, but all American battleships were in the Pacific at the time. Museums, memorials, and war cemeteries in the area now host many visitors each year.
• A failed counterattack by Communard forces on August 8 leaves 50,000 soldiers of the 7th Army trapped in the Falaise pocket. The Entente launches a second invasion from the Mediterranean Sea of southern France (code-named Operation Dragoon) on August 15, and the Liberation of Paris follows on 25 August. Communard forces surrender on 30 August 1944, marking the close of not only Operation Overlord, but the Second Weltkrieg in Europe. A few days later, Egypt surrenders to the Entente. All eyes are now on the Pacific.
• In the 1944 US Presidential Election, Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party is elected.

Treaty of London (1944)

The Third Internationale had finally been destroyed, allowing the Entente, Reichspakt, and Latin Union to carve up their territorial gains however they wished:

Entente Gains

• All of the British Isles shall be taken by Canada, and the United Kingdom will be reestablished
• The United Kingdom shall take all of its former colonies in the Caribbean
• Mexico and Centroamerica (except Belize, which will be returned to the United Kingdom) shall become American protectorates
• Sweden and Finland shall be annexed by Norway, forming the Scandinavian Union (colloquially known as Scandinavia)
• The United Kingdom shall reestablish British North Africa, including the territories of Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea (the Suez Canal shall remain under German control)

Reichspakt Gains

• All former Soviet territory (conquered or otherwise) shall be divided between various German administrative zones (Reichskommissariats), including Reichskommissariat Moskowien (administrating Northwest Russia), Reichskommissariat Kaukasien (administering the Caucuses), Reichskommissariat Ural (administering Central Russia), Reichskommissariat Don-Wolga (administering Southwest Russia), Reichskommissariat Orda (administering Central Asian territories conquered by the Soviet Union), Reichskommissariat Mongolia (administering Mongolia), and Reichskommissariat Transamur (administering the Amur Region); the puppet regime in Ukraine will also be reorganized as Reichskommissariat Ukraine, and the puppet regimes in White Ruthenia and the United Baltic Duchy will be reorganized as Reichskommissariat Ostland

Latin Union Gains

• The French Empire shall retake Mainland France
• All former French and Spanish colonies in the Caribbean shall be returned to their historical owners (the United States shall maintain control of Guatanamo Bay in Cuba)
• All former Spanish colonies in South America (except Argentina, which has declared neutrality) shall be returned to Spain (at this point, Chile had yet to surrender)
• Brazil shall be returned to Portugal
• Libya and Ethiopia shall be returned to Italy

Other

• Belgium shall be divided. Flanders will revert back to Spanish control, while Wallonia will become a German protectorate

1945: Banzai!

• Although the Marianas are secure and American bases firmly established, the long 1,200 miles (1,900 km) range from the Marianas means that B-29 aircrews on bombing missions over Japan find themselves ditching in the sea if they suffer severe damage and are unable to return home. Attention focuses on the island of Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands, about halfway between the Marianas and Japan. American planners recognize the strategic importance of the island, which is only 5 miles (8.0 km) long, 8 square miles (21 km²) in area and has no native population. The island was used by the Japanese as an early-warning station against impending air raids on Japanese cities, additionally, Japanese aircraft based on Iwo Jima were able to attack the B-29s on their bombing missions on route to their missions and on the returning leg home, and even to attack installations in the Marianas themselves. The capture of Iwo Jima would provide emergency landing airfields to repair and refuel crippled B-29s in trouble on their way home and a base for P-51 fighters escorts for the B-29s. Iwo Jima could also provide a base from which land-based air support could protect the US Naval fleets as they moved into Japanese waters along the arc descending from Tokyo through the Ryukyu Islands. However, the Japanese have also come to realize the strategic value of Iwo Jima and Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi is assigned command of the island in May 1944. In the months following, the Japanese begin work constructing elaborate defenses, making the best possible use of the island's natural caves and the uneven, rocky terrain. The island is transformed into a massive network of bunkers, hidden guns, with underground passageways leading from one strong point to another. Natural caves are enlarged, and many new ones are blasted out. A total of 11 miles (18 km)s of tunnels are constructed. The Japanese also go to great lengths to construct large underground chambers, some as much as five stories deep to serve as storage and hospital areas with thick walls and ceilings made of reinforced concrete. The main underground command post has a concrete roof 10 feet (3.0 m) thick. Pillboxes, bunkers and other defensive works are built close to the ground. A series of strong points covering the landing areas are also built, most are covered with sand and then carefully camouflaged. The many well-camouflaged 120mm and 6-inch guns are emplaced so that their fire could be directed to the beaches. The pillboxes and bunkers are all connected so that if one was knocked out, it could be reoccupied again. Smaller-caliber artillery, antiaircraft guns, and mortars are also well hidden and located where only a direct hit could destroy them. The Japanese are determined to make the Americans pay a high price for Iwo Jima and are prepared to defend it to the death. Kuribayashi knows that he can not win the battle but hoped to inflict severe casualties so costly that it would slow the American advance on Japan and maybe give the Japanese some bargaining power. In February, a total of 21,000 Japanese troops are deployed on Iwo Jima. The American operation ("Operation Detachment") to capture the island involves three Marine divisions of the V Amphibious Corps, a total of 70,647 troops, under the command of Holland Smith. From mid-June 1944, Iwo Jima comes under American air and naval bombardment, this continues until the days leading up to the invasion. An intense naval and air bombardment precedes the landing but does little but drive the Japanese further underground, making their positions impervious to enemy fire. The hidden guns and defenses survive the constant bombardment virtually unscathed. On the morning of February 19, 1945, 30,000 men of 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions under the command of Maj. General Harry Schmidt land on the southeast coast of the island near Mt. Suribachi, an inactive volcano, where most of the island's defenses are concentrated. The Japanese hold fire until the landing beaches are full. As soon as the Marines pushed inland they came under devastating machine gun and artillery fire. Although they manage to gain a foothold on the beaches, the defenders make them pay a high price for every advance inland. By the end of the day, the Marines reach the west coast of the island, but their losses are severe; almost 2,000 men killed or wounded. On February 23, the 28th Marine Regiment reach the summit of Mt. Suribachi, prompting the now famous Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph. Navy Secretary James Forrestal, upon seeing the flag, remarks "there will be a Marine Corps for the next 500 years". The flag raising is often cited as the most reproduced photograph of all time and became the archetypal representation not only of that battle, but of the entire Pacific War. For the rest of February, the Americans push north, and by March 1, have taken two-thirds of the island. But it is not until March 26 that the island is finally secured. Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest battles fought by the Americans during the Pacific War; the Japanese fought to the last man. American casualties were 6,821 killed and 19,207 wounded. The Japanese losses totaled well over 20,000 men killed, with only 1,083 prisoners were taken. Historians debate whether it was strategically worth the casualties sustained.
• On May 1, 1945, the United Kingdom is formally re-established. The British Reconstruction Authority is formed to rebuild the war-torn island.
• May 12: Rev. W. V. Awdry's children's book The Three Railway Engines, first of The Railway Series, is published in England.
• June 26: The United Nations is founded in New York. The permanent members of the UN Security Council are the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and China.
• July 16: The Manhattan Project yields its results in the form of Trinity, the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It is conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945. The test is conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was then the USAAF Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, now part of White Sands Missile Range. The only structures originally in the vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. A base camp is constructed, and there are 425 people present on the weekend of the test.
• August 6: With the Japanese refusing to surrender and German forces poised to invade the Kurill Islands from Vladivostok, the United States chooses to forgo Operation Downfall in favor of something more psychological: atomic bombing. The Little Boy device is dropped on Hiroshima, killing between 70,000-126,000 civilians and 20,000 soldiers, and destroying much of the city.
• August 9: The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki. The Fat Man device, with a larger yield than Little Boy, kills between 39,000-80,000 civilians and about 150 soldiers, though the effects are confined to the narrow Urakami Valley compared to Hiroshima, causing less destruction.
• August 15: Emperor Hirohito, in a VERY rare radio address, announces the Empire of Japan's surrender to the Entente. The Pacific War has finally come to an end.

Treaty of San Francisco (1945)

The end of the Pacific War resulted in further partitions between the Entente, Reichspakt, and Latin Union:

Empire of Japan

• Japan and all of its colonial holdings shall come under American control; Japan will become an American colony, while Korea will be divided between the Entente-friendly Republic of Korea and Reichspakt-friendly Joesen Kingdom
• The Island of Formosa shall be ceded to China

China

• China shall renounce its claim on the Legation Cities, but is allowed to retain an independent government, so long as it remains loyal to the Entente
• The Legation Cities shall change from a concession system open to all members of the council to adminstration contracts in which a nation directly adminsters a city (AOG holdings and the Portugese colony of Macau are unaffected). The initial 1945 contracts are as follows:
  • The United Kingdom regains Hong Kong
  • The United States gets Shanghai
  • France gets Tianjin
  • Spain gets Shantou
  • Canada gets Ningbo
  • Australasia gets Fuzhou
  • The inland concessions fall under direct Chinese control, with any nation able to use them

East Asia

• Indochina shall be returned to France
• Siam shall become an American colony

1946: Won the War, Lost the Peace

• Although the fighting in Europe and the Pacific has come to an end, the Second Weltkrieg did not end in 1945. Chile, the last bastion of syndicalism in the world, continues fighting Spain and Argentina until American forces are deployed to South America in March.
• March 16: With Entente forces unable to make any progress into Chile, the United States makes the decision to repeat the strategy used to defeat the Japanese, and a Fat Man device is dropped on Valparaíso. On March 18, under threat of further atomic bombings, the Syndicalist Republic of Chile surrenders, becoming a Spanish colony once more.
• In June, all cooperation between the Entente, Reichspakt, and Latin Union ceases
• June 18: Leadership of the Entente is transferred from Canada to the United States.
• July 1: Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in Micronesia, is initiated by the detonation of Able at an altitude of 520 feet (158 m).
• July 5: The first election for Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is held, with Clement Attlee of the social democratic Labour Party being elected.

1947: The Kalterkrieg Begins

• January 1: All American transportation infrastructure is nationalized, including the highways, buses, streetcars and subways, maritime and road shipping, and railroads. The formation of the United States Railway Administration, in addition to fulfilling one of Norris' major agenda items that the Second Weltkrieg put pay to, starts a massive wave of railway nationalizations around the world.
• March 12: President Wallace announces the Wallace Doctrine in a joint session of Congress, aimed at containing German, French, and Spanish geopolitical expansion.
• April 16: American financier and presidential advisor Bernard Baruch delivers a speech (by journalist Herbert Bayard Swope) saying, "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war."
• In response to the Baruch speech, Wilhelm III issues a statement "correcting" him, stating that they are in a "kalterkrieg". Napoleon VI, meanwhile, uses the term "conflit gelé" ("frozen conflict").
• July 11: Germany announces its first successful atomic bomb test, the RDS-1 test codenamed Erster Blitz ("First Lightning"). The test comes as a major shock to the United States, who immediately begin ramping up production of its own nuclear weapons. The nuclear arms race commences.
• September 18: The National Security Act of 1947 goes into effect, creating the United States Air Force, National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.
• October 17: Chuck Yeager becomes the first human to break the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 supersonic jet.
• In December, the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland reunify after both nations hold a referendum.

1948: Eventually, Someone Must Win the Arms Race

• January 1: The United Kingdom follows the United States' lead and nationalizes its railways. They had been nationalized during the reign of the Union of Britain as "Union Railways" (UR), and were privatized back into the Big Four (LNER, LMS, SR, and GWR) upon the Union's surrender. Now, they have been renationalized as British Railways (BR).
• Early in 1948, a sudden pro-Qing uprising erupts in Beijing. The Chinese Civil War restarts, now between the Republic of China and reconstituted Qing Empire. It soon comes to light that Germany has been funding and supplying Qing, something Wilhelm III proudly admits to. He also threatens to start the Third Weltkrieg if the Entente intervenes in China.
• The United States initiates the Marshall Plan to provide $13 billion (equivalent of about $115 billion in 2020) in economic recovery programs to Western European economies. Replacing an earlier proposal for a Morgenthau Plan, it operates for four years beginning on April 3, 1948. The goals of the United States are to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity, and prevent the spread of autocracy as well as put an end to any hope of reviving syndicalism. The Marshall Plan requires a reduction of interstate barriers and the dissolution of many regulations while also encouraging an increase in productivity as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.
• May 19: Gerboise Bleue: France tests its first atomic bomb, in the Sahara Desert of Algeria. Wilhelm III heavily condemns this, saying that French nuclear weapons could destabilize Western Europe.
• August 8: Spain tests its first atomic bomb off the coast of Venezuela.
• November 2: Henry Wallace defeats New Whig candidate Thomas Dewey for a second term as President of the United States. There is some confusion, though, and the banner headline of the Chicago Daily Tribune boldly proclaims "DEWEY DEFEATS WALLACE".

1949: China Divided. Again.

• The Chinese Civil War continues, and it soon becomes known that German volunteer forces are aiding Qing forces. In August, the United States stations B-29 bombers armed with nuclear weapons in Japan, which is enough to cause Wilhelm III to come to the negotiating table. In the Marshall Conference, it is agreed that the Republic of China and Qing Empire will cease hostilities, and a border between both will be drawn at the Yangtze River. Following this, the Qing Empire becomes colloquially known as "North China", while the ROC becomes colloquially known as "South China". South China is a full member of the Entente, while North China maintains friendly relations with the Reichspakt, but doesn't fully join.
• Tensions form between the United States and the Ottoman Empire, when it is alleged that the Israelites are being oppressed, possibly exterminated. The Ottomans go to great lengths to prove that nothing of the sort is happening, but this evidence is met with skepticism. In the midst of the bickering, Israeli separatists launch a successful uprising and form a new Israel, which declares neutrality. Wilhelm III accuses the Entente of fabricating the evidence to take the Reichpakt apart piece by piece, which is never proven.
• June 19: Glenn Dunaway wins the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte Speedway, a 3/4 mile oval in Charlotte, North Carolina, but is disqualified due to illegal springs. Jim Roper is declared the official winner.
• August 12: The Fourth Geneva Convention is agreed to, which will govern all future wars under the Rules of Engagement:
  • Rule 1: In the event of war over a certain territory, fighting is only allowed in that territory, plus a 100 mile sea zone; fighting in the homeland is not allowed unless no demarcation zone is declared
  • Rule 2: Targeting of enemy shipping, including unrestricted submarine warfare, is allowed
  • Rule 3: Wars must not affect immigration, tourism, or international sporting events such as the Olympic Games or Grand Prix racing

1950: Korea Divided

• February 8: The Stasi is founded in Germany, and acts as a secret police until 1991.
• May 13: The first race in the inaugural FIA Formula One World Championship in automobile racing is held, at Silverstone, England.
• June 25: The Joesen Kingdom (AKA North Korea) launches an invasion of the Republic of Korea (AKA South Korea), with the goal of conquering it. The Korean War begins.
• June 27: U.S. President Henry Wallace orders American military forces to aid in the defense of South Korea
• June 28:
  • North Korean forces capture Seoul, but do not win the war.
  • Hangang Bridge bombing: The South Korean army, in an attempt to defend Seoul, blows up the Hangang Bridge while it is crowded with refugees.
  • Seoul National University Hospital massacre: North Korean troops kill around 800 medical staff and patients.
  • Bodo League massacre begins: South Korean armed forces and police summarily execute at least 100,000 suspected North Korean sympathizers.
• July 14–21: Battle of Taejon. North Korean forces capture the city held by the U.S. 24th Infantry Division, but the delay allows establishment of the Pusan Perimeter.
• August 17: Hill 303 massacre. 39 U.S. soldiers are executed, after being captured in battle by North Korea.
• September 8: The Defense Production Act is enacted into law in the United States, shaping American military contracting for the next 60 years.
• September 15: Battle of Inchon. Allied troops commanded by Douglas MacArthur land in Inchon, occupied by North Korea, to begin a U.N. counteroffensive.
• September 30: NSC 68 is approved by President Truman, setting U.S. foreign policy for the next 20 years.
• October 7: Battle of Chamdo. The Annexation of Tibet by the Qing Empire, begins with the North Chinese invading across the Jinsha River. Several hours later, Wilhelm III orders the North Chinese to cease hostilities, as taking Tibet would give them a border with India, a major Entente member.
• October 19: The Qing Empire enters the Korean War, by sending thousands of soldiers across the Yalu River.
• November 8: While in an F-80, United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown intercepts 2 North Korean MiG-15s near the Yalu River and shoots them down, in the first jet-to-jet dogfight in history.
• November 26: Troops from the Qing Empire launch a massive counterattack against South Korean and United Nations forces at the Ch'ongch'on River and the Chosin Reservoir, as a Southern victory would give North China a border with an American ally, dashing any hopes for a quick end to the conflict.
• November 30: MacArthur threatens to use nuclear weapons in Korea.
• December 2: The Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River ends with the Chinese Imperial Army expelling United Nations forces from North Korea.

1951: Hudson Harbor

• January 4: Third Battle of Seoul. North Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950).
• February 1: The United Nations General Assembly declares that North China is an aggressor in the Korean War, in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 498.
• February 27: The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.
• March 14: Operation Ripper. For the second time, United Nations troops recapture Seoul.
• March 29: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, namely selling atomic weapon secrets to Germany. On April 5 they are sentenced to death.
• April 11: In a move that is still the subjected of heated debate to this day, President Wallace authorizes Operation Hudson Harbor, a plan to put an end to the Korean War with nuclear weapons. B-29 bombers drop airburst bombs over large military targets and power plants, and over 50 groundburst bombs in Manchuria to dissuade any further North Chinese aggression. All bombs used are the Mark 4 bomb (based on the Fat Man device), and the bombers Enola Gay and Bockscar, which bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, are called upon again to unleash destruction. Within an hour, North Korea fully surrenders, and North China ceases all hostilities. Germany, which was massing troops, bombers, and ships in the area (including two dreadnoughts), withdraws from the area, as Wilhelm III is intimidated. The Korean War comes to a close. The area in Manchuria bombed by the United States is declared terra nullius, and named the Yalu River Exclusionary Zone; it remains uninhabitable due to the fact the bombs had used polonium instead of uranium (uranium has all the elements of radioactive elements, but has a stable isotope, a phenomenon that continues to baffle scientists to this day); this was done specifically to ensure North Chinese troops could not send reinforcements without their troops falling victim to radiation sickness. The Yalu River Exclusionary Zone was declared habitable again in 2012, and in 2013, the city of Dandong, which had been destroyed during the war, was recolonized and commenced reconstruction.
• May 9: Operation Greenhouse. The first thermonuclear weapon is tested on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands, by the United States.
• July 21: Kaiser Wilhelm III dies of a heart attack. His son, Prince Frederick George William Christopher of Prussia, becomes Kaiser Frederick William V, who continues the policy of aggressive imperialism.
• July 28: Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a multilateral treaty of the United Nations, is signed at a special conference in Stockholm, defining the status of refugees and setting out the basis for granting right of asylum, coming into force on April 22, 1954.
• October 26: Winston Churchill is elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (a month before his 77th birthday) in a general election which sees the defeat of Clement Attlee's Labour government, after 6 years in power. It marks the first major defeat of a social democratic party.
• December 20
  • Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-1), the world's first (experimental) nuclear power plant, opens in Idaho.
  • A chartered Curtiss C-46 Commando crash-lands in Cobourg, Ontario Canada; all on board survive.
  • The World Meteorological Organization becomes a specialized agency of the United Nations.
• December 31: The Marshall Plan expires, after distributing more than $13.3 billion US in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
• Unknown date: The United States establishes the first civil defense broadcasting system, known as the National Emergency Warning System (NEWS). The purpose of the new system is to keep the public informed during a national emergency, as well as confuse German, French, and Spanish bombers by constantly switching transmitters.

1952: God Save the Queen

• February 6:
  • Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes monarch of Great Britain and the British Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and the West Indies Federation. The princess, who is on a visit to Kenya when she hears of the death of her uncle, King Henry IX, takes the title Elizabeth II.
  • In the United States of America, a mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient.
• February 7: Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the Britons at St James's Palace, London, England.
• February 15 – The funeral of George VI takes place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
• February 20: Elizabeth II proclaims an end to royal control of Canada, and calls for a snap election to be held in six day's time.
• February 26:
  • United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that the United Kingdom has an atomic bomb. Germany, France, and Spain condemn this move.
  • Vincent Massey is elected as the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada.
• March 22: Edward Forman publishes the first in his series of articles titled Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, including ideas for crewed flights to Mars and the Moon.
• April 7: The American Research Bureau reports that the I Love Lucy episode, "The Marriage License", was the first TV show in history to be seen in around 10,000,000 homes, the evening the episode aired.
• June 14: The keel is laid for the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
• July 25: Puerto Rico becomes the 49th state of the United States.
• November 1: Operation Ivy. The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike", at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, with a yield of 10.4 megatons.
• November 4: Estes Kefauver of the Progressive Party defeats war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower of the New Whig Party in the 1952 US Presidential Election. The results are described as "unsurprising", with most attention given to the very fact Kefauver was even nominated to begin with.

1953: Upping the Nuclear Ante

• January 13: "Doctors' plot". The state newspaper Kaiserliche Nachrichten publishes an article alleging that many of the most prestigious physicians in Germany, mostly Jews, are part of a major plot to poison the country's senior political and military leaders. Frederick William V, a known crusader for equal rights, launches an investigation into the newspaper, uncovering that the story had been written and published by a group of Savinkov loyalists who had somehow managed to get positions at the paper, and were planning to use the paper to incite an uprising to restore the Russian State. All involved are publicly hanged.
• March 17: The first nuclear test of Operation Upshot–Knothole is conducted in Nevada, with 1,620 spectators at 3.4 km (2.1 mi).
• May 18: At Rogers Dry Lake, Californian Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to exceed Mach 1, in a North American F-86 Sabre at 652.337 mph (566.865 kn; 1,049.835 km/h).
• July 9 – The U.S. Treasury formally renames the Bureau of Internal Revenue; the new name (which had previously been used informally) is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
• July 14: The United States commissions the first guided missile dreadnought, USS Arizona (BBG-1). This marks the beginning of the Missile Dreadnought Age, and the beginning of a new naval arms race amongsth the superpowers. It also marks a turning point in naval doctrine; after the Second Weltkrieg, it was generally assumed that dreadnoughts had been rendered obsolete by naval aircraft, but the Entente, Reichspakt, and Latin Union all still saw the practicality of dreadnoughts. Carriers would be used as floating airfields for protecting the fleet from enemy aircraft and striking land-based targets, while guided missile battleships would form the main battle line. All sides start slowly decommissioning their gun battleships or refitting them as guided missile ships (some of these refitted ships dating back to the First Weltkrieg), but several remain in service as offshore artillery.
• August 8: Kaiser Frederick William V announces that Germany has a hydrogen bomb.
• August 15–19: 1953 Iranian coup d'état. Overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, by Iranian military in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with the support of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (as "Operation Ajax") and United Kingdom.
• September 10: Napoleon VI announces that France has a hydrogen bomb.
• October 6: UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, is made a permanent specialized agency of the United Nations.
• October 30: U.S. President Estes Kefauver formally approves the top secret document of the United States National Security Council NSC 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the German, French, and Spanish threats.
• December: Hugh Hefner publishes the first issue of Playboy magazine in the United States, featuring a centerfold nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe; it sells 54,175 copies at $.50 each.
• December 2: Great Britain and Iran reform diplomatic relations.
• December 7: A visit to Iran by American Vice President John Sparkman sparks several days of riots, as a reaction to the August 19 overthrow of the government of Mohammed Mossadegh by the U.S.-backed Shah. Three students are shot dead by police in Tehran. This event becomes an annual commemoration.
• December 8: President Kefauver delivers his Atoms for Peace address, to the United Nations General Assembly.
• December 24: Carlos VIII dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. Three days after his death, during a dinner celebrating the imminent coronation of Archduke Anton, soldiers break into the banquet hall and kill all Habsburgs present, an event that would later inspire the "Red Wedding" in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (and its HBO adaptation Game of Thrones). In the aftermath, the Bourbons reclaim the now-empty throne, and Juan Carlo I is coronated in what the Entente calls a successful coup.

1954: Submarines, Planes, and Godzilla

• January 21: The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut, by First Lady of the United States Nancy Kefauver.
• February 25: Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes premier of Egypt.
• March 1: U.S. officials announce that a hydrogen bomb test (Castle Bravo) has been conducted, on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
• March 27: The Castle Romeo nuclear test explosion is executed at Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands.
• April 14: A German spy ring in Australia is unveiled.
• April 26: Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is released.
• May 14: The Boeing 707 is released, after about 2 years of development.
• May 17: Brown v. Board of Education (347 US 483 1954): The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that segregated schools are unconstitutional.
• June 14: The words "under God" are added to the United States Pledge of Allegiance.
• September 30: The USS Nautilus is commissioned into the U.S. Navy.
• October 10: Anti-American partisans declare the Sultanate of Oman and Muscat, aiming to throw the United States out of Arabia. The Jebel Akhdar War begins.
• October 31: France invades Morocco, a nation that was under the protection of the Entente (but not a full member). The United States and United Kingdom respond with a declaration of war against France, and Spain and Italy come to France's aid. The Algerian War, the first major military conflict between the Entente and Latin Union, commences.
• November 3: The first Godzilla film premieres in Tokyo.
• November 12: A large naval battle between the United Kingdom and French Empire takes place, the first clash of battleships since the Second Weltkrieg. The Battle of Casablanca sees the British lose a battlecruiser and the French a battleship, plus several cruisers and destroyers on both sides.
• December 11: The United States launches the USS Forrestal, the first supercarrier. All other superpowers race to acquire supercarriers.

1955: The Happiest Place on Earth

• January 17: USS Nautilus puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
• January 22: In the United States, The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear weapons.
• March 7: The Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, which had opened in 1954 starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC-TV, with its original cast, as an installment of Producers' Showcase. It is also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV, almost exactly as it was performed on stage. This program gains the largest viewership of a TV special up to this time, and it becomes one of the first great TV family musical classics.
• April 1: Greece launches a surprise amphibious assault on Cyprus, a British colony, starting the First Cyprus War.
• April 5: Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of Great Britain, due to ill-health, at the age of 80.
• April 6: Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.
• April 8: The Greek submarine campaign to stop all trade to and from Cyprus fails before it even begins, with most Greek submarines being sunk by British destroyers and frigates, forcing Greece to pull back its four surviving submarines. It is the single-largest loss of submarines in a single naval battle in history.
• May 9: A young Jim Henson introduces the earliest version of Kermit the Frog (made in March), in the premiere of his puppet show Sam and Friends, on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
• June 11: Le Mans disaster. Eighty-three people are killed and at least 100 are injured, after two race cars collide in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans.
• July 17:
  • The Disneyland theme park opens in Anaheim, California, an event broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company television network.
  • The first atomic-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering Arco, Idaho, from the U.S. National Reactor Testing Station; on July 18, Schenectady, New York, receives power from a prototype nuclear submarine reactor at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.
• July 18–23: Geneva Summit between the United States, Germany, Great Britain, and France.
• July 28: Germany launches its first guided missile dreadnought.
• August 1: The prototype Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft first flies, in Nevada.
• August 28: Black 14-year-old Emmett Till is lynched and shot in the head for allegedly grabbing and threatening a white woman in Money, Mississippi; his white murderers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, are acquitted by an all-white jury, but President Kefauver intervenes and orders they be tried before the Supreme Court, eventually convicting them and sentencing them to public hanging. Controversially, their bodies are strung up and displayed in Money as an example to other would-be lynchers.
• October 2: Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts on the CBS TV network in the United States.
• October 3: The Mickey Mouse Club debuts on the ABC-TV network in the United States.
• October 5: Disneyland Hotel opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
• October 29: German battleship Novorossiysk explodes at moorings in Sevastopol Bay, killing 608 (Germany's worst naval disaster to date).
• November 1: Germany launches a three-pronged amphibious invasion of Indochina, seeking to retake it from France. The Indochinese War commences.
• November 6: The final AAA-sanctioned Championship Car race is held at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Phoenix, Arizona. Following the race, the AAA ends all motorsports sanctioning due to the Le Mans disaster. The United States Auto Club is formed to take over sanctioning for Championship Car racing, except for the Indianapolis 500, which becomes an FIA-sanctioned Formula One race and renamed to the International Grand Prix (though it is still colloquially known as, and marketed as, the "Indianapolis 500").
• December 1: In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger, and is arrested, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott. She is released hours later by order of President Kefauver, who personally visits Montgomery days later and grills the entire police department.
• December 5: The Montgomery Improvement Association is formed in Montgomery, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other Black ministers to coordinate the Montgomery bus boycott by Black people. The formation is timed to coincide with President Kefauver's visit to Montgomery, and he personally endorses the organization.
• December 9: Investigations are launched by the FBI into the state government of Alabama, after it is alleged that William H. Murray and the Old Democratic Party have resurfaced and were behind the recent racial violence in the south.
• December 20: Cardiff is declared by the British Government as the capital of Wales.

1956: Suez War

• February 11: British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean resurface in Germany, after being missing for 5 years.
• March 12: 96 U.S. Congressmen sign the Southern Manifesto, a protest against the 1954 Supreme Court ruling (Brown v. Board of Education) that desegregated public education.
• May 3: The Algerian War comes to end, with the Entente successfully defending Morocco from France, who accept a White Peace. To prevent further attacks on Morocco, the country is admitted into the Entente.
• July 25: The Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria sinks after colliding with the Swedish ship SS Stockholm in heavy fog 72 kilometers (45 mi) south of Nantucket island, killing 51.
• July 26: Germany closes the Suez Canal to all non-Reichspakt vessels, sparking international condemnation.
• July 30: A joint resolution of Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God we trust" as the U.S. national motto.
• October 22: The United States, United Kingdom, and Israel secretly meet in Sèvres and make plans to invade Egypt.
• October 23: The Hungarian Revolution breaks out against the Danubian Federation, originating as a student demonstration in Budapest. The goal is to leave the Federation and re-establish an independent Hungary.
• October 26: Danubian troops are sent to former Hungarian territory to put down the uprising.
• October 29: Entente forces invade the Suez Canal, commencing the Suez War.
• October 30: A fleet action occurs between the United States and Germany in the Mediterranean near the Suez Canal. The battle ends with two German battleships sunk by the new American guided missile dreadnoughts, along with many destroyers and several cruisers.
• October 31:
  • The Entente begins bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.
  • A United States Navy team becomes the third group to reach the South Pole (arriving by air), and commences construction of the first permanent Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station.
  • The increased British naval presence in the Mediterrenean causes Greece to sue for a white peace, ending the First Cyprus War.
• November 2: American and British submarines score big against Reichspakt shipping moving through the Suez Canal, as the German fleet meant to defend the area was damaged in the October 30 fleet action.
• November 3: Khan Yunis massacre. Israeli soldiers shoot dead hundreds of Palestinian refugees and local inhabitants in Khan Yunis Camp.
• November 4: More Danubian troops invade Hungary, to crush the revolt that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
• November 6: 1956 United States presidential election. Progressive incumbent Estes Kefauver defeats New Whig challenger Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a rematch of their contest 4 years earlier.
• November 13: Browder v. Gayle: The United States Supreme Court declares illegal the state and municipal laws requiring segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott.
• November 16: A wolfpack of German U-boats begin operations in the Atlantic in response to the Suez War. These submarines are unsuccessful, and several are sunk by British and Dutch destroyers.
• November 23: The Suez Crisis causes petrol rationing in Britain.
• November 25: The United States detonates a nuclear weapon over German divisions in the Suez Canal. Hours later, Frederick William V orders all German troops to withdraw from the area. The Entente allows them to do so, and the Suez War ends. The bomb used was not one of the new hydrogen bombs, but a Mark 8 bomb, using the lowest-possible yield of 8 kt.
• December 23: The last German troops leave the Suez Canal region.

1957: The Final Frontier Awakens

• January 9: British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigns.
• January 10: Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• February 4: The first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It is decommissioned on March 3, 1980.
• March 8: The Suez Canal Legation Council is formed, under a similar system to the pre-war Chinese Legation Cities Council, allowing any nation, regardless of alliance, to use the canal.
• March 13: The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa, and charges him with bribery.
• April 9: The Suez Canal reopens to all shipping.
• April 15: The Distant Early Warning Line is handed over by contractors to the U.S. and Canadian military.
• May 22: A 42,000-pound Mark 17 hydrogen bomb accidentally falls from a United States bomber, near Albuquerque.
• July 6: John Lennon and Paul McCartney first meet as teenagers at a garden fete at St. Peter's Church, Woolton, Liverpool, England, at which Lennon's skiffle group, The Quarrymen, is playing, 3 years before forming The Beatles.
• July 16 – United States Marine Major John Glenn flies an F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds, setting a new transcontinental speed record.
• August 21 – President Kefauver announces a 2-year suspension of nuclear testing.
• September 4
  • Little Rock Crisis: Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas calls out the National Guard of the United States, to prevent African-American students from enrolling in Little Rock Central High School.
• September 9: The Civil Rights Act of 1957 is enacted, establishing the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
• September 24: President Kefauver sends federal troops to Arkansas, to provide safe passage into Little Rock Central High School for the "Little Rock Nine". This quickly turns into a standoff with the Arkansas National Guard, until Governor Faubus gives the order to shoot and kill the "Little Rock Nine". The students survive, but a large firefight breaks out between the two sides. By evening, the fighting has spread to downtown Little Rock.
• September 25: The Old Democratic Party claims responsibility for the attempted killing of the Little Rock Nine, and states that the violence will continue unless President Kefauver immediately ceases all civil rights efforts and adopt segregation in all states. In the following weeks, Kefauver orders a nationwide manhunt for members of the ODP, receiving unexpected assistance when Huey Long, leader of the America First Party during the 1930s political crisis, outs several major figures of the ODP. By December, the ODP is declared defeated.
• October 4: Germany attempts to launch Satellit 1, the first artificial satellite, into Earth's orbit. The satellite is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the former Alash Orda, but the R-7 rocket, designed by Russian rocket scientist Sergei Korolev, explodes shortly after launch, raining debris on the area.
• November 3 – Germany attempts to launch Satellit 2, a repeat of Satellit 1, this time with an A7 rocket designed by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. This rocket manages to go higher than Korolev's, but the second stage fails to ignite, and the rocket crashes down near the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.
• November 7 – The Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and bomb shelters.
• November 13: Gordon Gould invents the laser.
• November 23: The Spanish invade the Ifni region of Morocco, causing a swift British response. The Ifni War commences.
• December 18 – The Bridge on the River Kwai is released in the U.S. It goes on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Additional Oscars go to Alec Guinness (Best Actor) and David Lean (Best Director), among others. This is Lean's first Oscar for directing.
• December 20 – The Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time.

1958: The Space Race Begins

• January 1: In response to the increasing amount of commercial airlines, the United States forms the United States Aviation Administration as a sub-administration of the United States Transit Administration.
• January 27: A Soviet-American executive agreement on cultural, educational and scientific exchanges, also known as the "Lacy–Zarubin Agreement", is signed in Washington, D.C.
• January 31: The first successful satellite, the American Explorer 1, is launched into orbit atop a Jupiter-C. Frederick William V is humiliated by this, and forces both von Braun and Korolev to work overtime to get a functioning rocket.
• February 1: Egypt and Syria unite, to form the United Arab Republic.
• February 17: Bertrand Russell launches the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
• March 11: A U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Without a fissile warhead, its conventional explosives destroy a house and injure several people.
• March 17: The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite. The satellite is still in orbit as of March 2022, and is not expected to reenter the atmosphere until 2198 at the earliest.
• March 26: The United States Army launches Explorer 3.
• April 4: The first protest march by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from London to Aldermaston, Berkshire, begins from Trafalgar Square.
• May 1: US space scientist James van Allen announces the discovery of Earth's magnetosphere.
• May 12: A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.
• May 15: Germany successfully launches its first satellite, Satellit 3, atop a rocket combining the best elements of the R-7 and A6 that carries the R-7 designation. What few people know is that the R-7 is also the world's first operational intercontinental ballistic missile.
• May 19: Italy tests its first nuclear weapon.
• May 22: President Kefauver becomes the first American elected official to be broadcast on color television.
• May 23: Explorer 1 ceases transmission.
• May 30: The bodies of unidentified United States soldiers killed in action during the Second Weltkrieg and the Korean War are buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns, in Arlington National Cemetery.
• June 30: The Ifni War ends after the Spanish fail to achieve any of their objectives.
• July 7: President Kefauver signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law.
• July 12: The Beatles, at this time known as The Quarrymen, pay 17 shillings and 6 pence to have their first recording session where they record Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day" and "In Spite of All the Danger", a song written by Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
• July 26
  • Explorer 4 is launched in the United States.
  • Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom announces that she is giving her son and heir apparent The Prince, Charles, the customary title of Prince of Wales. The announcement is made at the end of the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, held in Cardiff.
• July 29: The U.S. Congress formally creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
• August 3: The nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus becomes the first vessel to cross the North Pole under water.
• August 12: The Federal Switchblade Act is enacted in the United States.
• August 17: The first Thor-Able rocket is launched, carrying Pioneer 0, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 17. The launch fails due to a first stage malfunction.
• August 27: Operation Argus. The United States begins nuclear tests over the South Atlantic.
• September 1: The first Cod War begins, between the United Kingdom and Iceland (the latter of which was neutral at the time).
• September 30: Germany performs a nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya.
• October 1: NASA starts operations and replaces the NACA in the United States.
• October 11: Pioneer 1, the second and most successful of the 3 project Able space probes, becomes the first spacecraft launched by the newly formed NASA.
• October 21: The Life Peerages Act entitles women to sit in the British House of Lords for the first time. The Baronesses Swanborough (Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading) and Wootton (Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger) are the first to take their seats.
• October 26: A Pan American World Airways Boeing 707 makes its first transatlantic flight.
• November 20: The Jim Henson Company is founded as Muppets, Inc. in the United States.
• December 5: Prime Minister Harold Macmillan personally inspects and opens the United Kingdom's first ever motorway, the Preston Bypass, to traffic for the first time. (The bypass becomes part of the M6 and M55 Motorways, and is significantly upgraded in the mid 1990s.) 11 months later the M1, M45 and M10 Motorways open.
• December 18: The United States launches SCORE, the world's first communications satellite.
• December 19: A message from President Kefauver is broadcast from the SCORE satellite.

1959: The One Place That Hasn't Been Corrupted by Social Democracy

• January 2: Germany successfully launches the Mond 1 satellite from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Mond 1 becomes the first man-made object to escape the pull of the Earth's gravity and the first man-made object to orbit the Sun. Germany takes the lead in the Space Race.
• January 3: Alaska is admitted as the 50th U.S. state.
• January 6: The International Maritime Organization is inaugurated.
• January 15: Germany conducts its first census after the Second Weltkrieg.
• January 30: The "Sultan's Rebellion" is defeated by the United States, ending the Jebel Akhdar War.
• February 17: Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud cover for the United States Navy.
• February 22: Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
• March 3: Lunar probe Pioneer 4 becomes the first American object to escape dominance by Earth's gravity.
• March 9: Mattel's Barbie doll debuts in the United States.
• March 31: The original Busch Gardens amusement park opens in Tampa, Florida, U.S.
• April 9: NASA announces its selection of twelve military pilots to become the first U.S. astronauts (later known as the Mercury Twelve). The group consists of seven men (Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, L. Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton) and five women (Wally Funk, Marion and Janet Dietrich, Bernice Steadman, and Sarah Gorelick).
• April 25: The Saint Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping.
• May 28: Jupiter AM-18 rocket launches two primates, Miss Baker and Miss Able, into space from Cape Canaveral in the United States along with living microorganisms and plant seeds. Successful recovery makes them the first living beings to go to space and return safely to Earth after space flight.
• June 8: The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
• June 9: The USS George Washington is launched as the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles.
• June 14: Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
• June 23: Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in a British prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden where he resumes a scientific career.
• June 26: Elizabeth II and President Kefauver open the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
• July 2: The first French satellite, Allouette 1, is launched from the Special Weapons Test Center in Algeria on a Europa 1 rocket.
• July 15: A strike occurs against the United States' steel industry.
• August 7: The United States launches Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• August 14: Explorer 6 sends the first picture of Earth from orbit.
• August 31: Beijing Imperial Stadium, known well for sports venues in North China, officially opens.
• September 14: Monde 2 becomes the first man-made object to crash on the Moon.
• September 16: The Xerox 914, the first plain paper copier, is introduced to the public.
• September 17:
  • The first Navy Navigation Satellite System Transit 1A is launched but fails to reach orbit.
  • The hypersonic North American X-15 research vehicle, piloted by Scott Crossfield, makes its first powered flight at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
• October 1: The 10th anniversary of the rebirth of the Qing Empire is celebrated with pomp across the country
• October 2: Rod Serling's classic anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS.
• October 7: The German probe Monde 3 sends back the first ever photos of the far side of the Moon.
• October 13: The United States launches Explorer 7.
• October 29: First appearance of Astérix the Gaul.
• November 20: The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.
• The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor, was invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs. It revolutionized the electronics industry, and became the fundamental building block of the Digital Revolution. The MOSFET went on to become the most widely manufactured device in history.
• December 1: Antarctic Treaty. 12 countries, including the United States and Germany, sign a landmark treaty that sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent (the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War).

1960: More Winds of Change

• January 1: The European Space Agency (ESA), a joint venture between the nations of the Latin Union, is formed.
• January 15: The first televised anime, Three Tales, debuts on NHK in Japan.
• January 24: A major insurrection occurs in Algiers against French colonial policy.
• February 3: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Macmillan makes the Wind of Change speech to the South African Parliament in Cape Town.
• February 5: The first CERN particle accelerator becomes operational in Geneva, Switzerland.
• April 1: The United States launches the first weather satellite, TIROS-1.
• April 13:
  • The United States launches navigation satellite Transit I-b.
  • Proposed mass-production of the Blue Streak missile for Great Britain is approved.
• May 1: The U-2 incident. Several German surface-to-air missiles shoot down an American Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Its pilot, Francis Gary Powers of the Central Intelligence Agency, is captured.
• May 6: President Kefauver signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law.
• May 9: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announces that it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making it the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.
• May 10: The U.S. nuclear-powered submarine USS Triton, under the command of Captain Edward L. Beach Jr., completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the Earth (codenamed Operation Sandblast).
• May 13: A joint Swiss and Austrian expedition makes the first ascent of the Asian mountain Dhaulagiri, the world's 7th highest mountain.
• May 15: The satellite Satellit 4 is launched into orbit by Germany. It is believed to be a test article of the manned Ost spacecraft.
• May 16: Frederick William V demands an apology from President Kefauver for the U-2 reconnaissance plane flights over Russia, thus aborting a summit meeting scheduled for San Francisco in 1960.
• June 22: The United States Naval Research Laboratory SOLRAD 1 Galactic Radiation and Background program satellite is successfully launched by a Thor-Ablestar rocket (along with navigation satellite Transit 2A), serving as the first successful U.S. reconnaissance satellite over Russia and returning the first real-time X-ray and ultraviolet observations of the Sun.
• July 1: A German Luftwaffe fighter plane flying north of Murmansk, Russia, over the Barents Sea, shoots down a six-man RB-47 Stratojet reconnaissance plane of the U.S. Air Force. Four of the U.S. Air Force officers are killed, and the two survivors are held prisoner in Germany.
• July 13: U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy is nominated for President of the United States at the 1960 Progressive National Convention in Los Angeles.
• July 21: Francis Chichester, English navigator and yachtsman, arrives at New York City aboard his yacht, Gypsy Moth II, crossing the Atlantic Ocean solo in a new record of just 40 days.
• July 25–28: In Chicago, the 1960 New Whig National Convention nominates Richard Nixon as its candidate for President of the United States, and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., as its candidate to become the new vice-president.
• August 12: Dr. Seuss publishes Green Eggs and Ham in the United States; 40 years on it will be the fourth-best selling English-language children's hardcover book yet written.
• August 17: the trial of American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers begins in Moscow.
• August 19:
  • In Moscow, American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage.
  • Germany launches the satellite Satellit 5, with the dogs Eichhörnchen and Kleiner Pfeil (German for "Squirrel" and "Little Arrow"), 40 mice, two rats and a variety of plants. This satellite returns to earth the next day and all animals are recovered safely.
• August 24: The United States launches the first nuclear-powered battleship, a conversion of the USS Iowa (formerly BB-51, now BBGN-18). All remaining Iowa-class battleships would be converted by 1964.
• September 8: In Huntsville, Alabama, President Kefauver formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (which had been activated by NASA on July 1).
• September 26: The leading candidates for President of the United States, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, participate in the first televised debate.
• September 30: Animated sitcom The Flintstones airs its first episode on the ABC network in the United States.
• October 12:
  • Kaiser Frederick William V pounds his shoe on a table at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, his way of protesting the discussion of Germany's policies toward Eastern Europe.
  • John F. Kennedy speaks before the Ministerial Association of Houston, Texas, saying, in part, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the American President, should he be Catholic, how to act; and where no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote."
• October 14: Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy first suggests the idea for the Peace Corps of the United States.
• November 8: 1960 United States presidential election. In a close race, Progressive U. S. Senator John F. Kennedy is elected over New Whig Richard Nixon, to become (at 43) the second youngest man to serve as President of the United States, and the youngest man elected to this position.
• November 15: A Polaris missile is test-launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• December 1: A German satellite containing live animals and plants is launched into orbit. Due to a malfunction, it burns up during re-entry.
• December 13: The U.S. Navy's Commander Leroy Heath (pilot) and Lieutenant Larry Monroe (bombardier/navigator) establish a world flight-altitude record of 91,450 feet (27,874 m), with payload, in an A-5 Vigilante bomber carrying 2,200 lb (1,000 kg), and better the previous world record by over four miles (6 km)
• December 16: Secretary of State Christian Herter announces that the United States will commit five nuclear submarines and eighty Polaris missiles to the defense of the Entente countries by the end of 1963.
• During this year, the Sino-German split occurs, ending all cooperation between Germany and the Qing Empire.

1961: Man in Space

• January 17: President Estes Kefauver gives his final State of the Union Address to Congress. In a Farewell Address the same day, he warns of the increasing power of a "military–industrial complex."
• January 20: John F. Kennedy is sworn in as the 35th President of the United States.
• January 25: In Washington, D.C., President John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference. In it, he announces that Germany has freed the two surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane, shot down by German fighters over the Barents Sea on July 1, 1960.
• January 28: Supercar, the first family sci-fi TV series filmed in Supermarionation by Gerry Anderson, debuts on ATV in the UK.
• January 30: President John F. Kennedy delivers his first State of the Union Address.
• January 31: Ham, a 37-pound (17-kg) male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury spacecraft, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.
• February 1: The United States tests its first Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile.
• February 4: The United Kingdom launches a series of airstrikes in Portugese Angola, followed by several amphibious landings, aimed at taking the entire colony. The First Angolan War commences.
• February 9: The Beatles at The Cavern Club: Lunchtime. The Beatles perform under this name at The Cavern Club for the first time, George Harrison's first appearance at the venue. On March 21 they begin regular performances here.
• February 12: Germany launches Venus 1 towards Venus.
• March–April: Drilling for Project Mohole is undertaken off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico.
• March 1: President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
• March 8:
  • Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth in 8 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, setting a new world record.
  • The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch in Scotland.
• March 11: "Barbie" gets a boyfriend, when the "Ken" doll is introduced in the United States.
• March 29: The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential elections.
• April 12: Germany attempts to launch the first man into space. The astronaut, Russian Yuri Gagarin, is killed when the rocket explodes on the pad seconds before launch, later determined to be a manufacturing defect.
• May 5: Alan Shepard becomes the first man in space, aboard Mercury 3 (all manned Mercury missions were launched on the Atlas rocket).
• May 9: In a speech on "Television and the Public Interest" to the National Association of Broadcasters, FCC chairman Newton N. Minow describes commercial television programming as a "vast wasteland".
• May 19: Venus 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however, the probe has lost contact with Earth a month earlier, and does not send back any data).
• May 25: President Kennedy announces, before a special joint session of Congress, his goal to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. The Apollo program is initiated.
• June 4: Stockholm summit. John F. Kennedy and Juan Carlo I meet during two days in Stockholm, Sweden. They discuss nuclear tests, disarmament, and Mexico.
• June 23: The Antarctic Treaty comes into effect.
• July 5: The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2, is launched.
• July 21: Virgil I. Grissom, piloting the Mercury 4 spacecraft, becomes the second human to go into space. After splashdown, the hatch prematurely opens, and the spacecraft sinks (it is recovered in 1999).
• July 25: President Kennedy gives a widely watched TV speech on the Mexico crisis, warning Spain "we will not give up Mexico." Kennedy urges Americans to build bomb shelters, setting off a four-month debate on civil defense.
• August 1: The Six Flags Over Texas theme park officially opens to the public.
• August 6: German astronaut Gherman Titov becomes the third human to orbit the Earth, the first German citizen in space, and the first to be in outer space for more than one day.
• August 7: Ost 2 lands in the Soviet Union.
• August 13: Construction of the Westwall begins, restricting movement between Germany and France, and forming a clear boundary between the Reichspakt and Latin Union.
• August 30: The Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness is signed at the United Nations in New York, coming into effect December 13, 1975.
• September 1: Italy launches an invasion of Eritrea from Ethiopia, starting the Eritrean War. The war ends two weeks later due to Italy grossly underestimating British defenses in the region.
• September 24: In the U.S., the Walt Disney anthology television series, renamed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moves from ABC to NBC after seven years on the air, and begins telecasting its programs in color for the first time. Years later, after Disney's death, the still-on-the-air program will be renamed The Wonderful World of Disney.
• October 30: Germany detonates a 58-megaton yield hydrogen bomb known as König der Bombe, over Novaya Zemlya (it remains the largest ever man-made explosion).
• November 9: Robert White records a world air speed record of 4,093 mph (6,587 km/h), in an X-15.

1962: Cuban Missile Crisis

• January 1: The United States Navy SEALs, elite special forces, are activated. Navy Seal 1 is commissioned in the Pacific Fleet, and SEAL Team Two in the Atlantic Fleet.\
• January 3: Pope John XXIII excommunicates Frederick William V after plans are leaked to rename the Greater German Reich to the Holy Roman Empire.
• January 26: Ranger 3 is launched to study the Moon; it later misses the Moon by 22,000 mi (35,000 km).
• February 3: The United States embargo against Cuba is announced.
• February 7: The United States embargo against Cuba comes into effect, prohibiting all U.S.-related Cuban imports and exports.
• February 10: Captured American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for captured German spy Rudolf Abel, in Strasbourg.
• February 14: First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.
• February 20: John Glenn orbits the Earth aboard Mercury 5. Unlike Shepherd and Grissom, who both orbited the Earth once, Glenn orbits three times.
• April 18: NASA selects the second group of twelve astronauts. It consists of nine men (Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell, James McDivitt, Elliott See, Tom Stafford, Ed White, and John Young) and three women (Makayla Lee, Louise Hendriks, and Stephanie Campbell).
• April 21: The Century 21 Exposition World's Fair opens in Seattle, United States.
• April 26: The Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
• May 5: Twelve French nationals escape via a tunnel, under the Westwall.
• May 6: A test of a W47 warhead fired from a Polaris missile occurs near Palmyra Atoll south of Hawaii.
• May 24: Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth 3 times, in the Mercury 6 space capsule.
• June 6: President Kennedy gives the commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
• June 11:
  • President John F. Kennedy gives the commencement address at Yale University.
  • Frank Lee Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin escape from the Alcatraz Island prison
• June 25:
  • Engel v. Vitale: The United States Supreme Court rules that mandatory prayers in public schools are unconstitutional.
  • MANual Enterprises v. Day: The United States Supreme Court rules that photographs of nude men are not obscene, decriminalizing nude male pornographic magazines.
• July 10: AT&T's Telstar, the world's first commercial communications satellite, is launched into orbit and activated the next day.
• July 12: The Rolling Stones make their debut at London's Marquee Club, opening for Long John Baldry.
• July 13: In what the press dubs "the Night of the Long Knives", British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismisses one-third of his Cabinet amidst failures in the invasion of Angola.
• July 17: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation, at the Nevada Test Site.
• July 22: The Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch, and has to be destroyed.
• July 23: Telstar relays the first live trans-Atlantic television signal.
• July 25: The first armed helicopter company of the United States Army is formed at Okinawa, Japan.
• July 29: The First Angolan War ends in a victory for Portugal, with the British turned back.
• August 5: Marilyn Monroe is found dead from an overdose of sleeping pills and chloral hydrate at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles; it is officially ruled a "probable suicide" (the exact cause has been disputed).
• August 18: Norway launches its 1st sounding rocket, Ferdinand 1 from Andøya Space Center and becomes a space nation.
• August 27: NASA launches the Mariner 2 space probe.
• September 12: President John F. Kennedy, at a speech at Rice University, reaffirms that the U.S. will put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.
• September 21: A border conflict between North China and India is stopped when American bombers carrying nuclear weapons fly over North Chinese forces, which is enough to make them retreat.
• October 3: Walter Schirra orbits the Earth six times, in the Mercury 7 space capsule.
• October 5:
  • The Beatles' first single in their own right, "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You", is released in the U.K. on EMI's Parlophone label. This version is recorded on September 4, at Abbey Road Studios in London, with Ringo Starr as drummer.
  • Dr. No, the first James Bond film, premieres at the London Pavilion, featuring Sean Connery as the hero.
• October 14: The beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A U-2 flight over Cuba in the Caribbean photographs Spanish nuclear weapons being installed. A stand-off then ensues for another 12 days, after President Kennedy is told of the pictures, between the United States and Spain.
• October 20: The Sino-Indian War, a border dispute involving two of the world's largest nations (India and the Qing Empire), begins. Republic of China forces are deployed to the Yangtze border to guard against a potential spillover.
• October 22: In a televised address, U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces the presence of Spanish missiles in Cuba.
• October 24: The first confrontation occurs between the U.S. Navy and a Spanish cargo vessel occurs near Cuba; the vessel changes course.
• October 28: Juan Carlo I refuses to remove the missiles from Cuba, and even fires one at Puerto Rico, destroying roughly 35% of San Juan. The United States responds with a massive naval and aerial bombardment of the island. The Cuban Missile Crisis escalates into the Cuban Missile War. The nuclear attack on San Juan causes mass panic on the American mainland, particularly in Florida.
• October 29: The Battle of Leogane takes place between British and French fleets. In the first large-scale naval battle in the Caribbean in centuries, two British battlecruisers are sunk by a single French guided missile dreadnought, forcing the British to retreat.
• October 30: The United States uses several nuclear weapons on missile launch sites in Cuba, as well as on the capital in Havana. With all nuclear assets in the region destroyed, the United States manages to force Spain to admit defeat and pay reparations for the rebuilding of San Juan, though they allow Spain to keep Cuba, to which Juan Carlo I calls President Kennedy "a chivalrous man".
• November 3: Earliest recorded use of the term "personal computer", in the report of a speech by computing pioneer John Mauchly in The New York Times.
• November 7: Richard M. Nixon loses the California governor's race. In his concession speech, he states that this is "Richard Nixon's last press conference" and "you won't have Nixon to kick around any more".
• November 21: The Sino-Indian War ends with a Qing ceasefire.
• November 29: An agreement is signed between Spain and France, to develop the Concorde supersonic airliner.
• December 9: In response to the announcement of Concorde, the United States and United Kingdom announce the development of the Boeing 2707 as a direct competitor.
• December 14: U.S. spacecraft Mariner 2 passes by Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to transmit data from another planet.
• December 21: Britain agrees to purchase Polaris missiles from the U.S.

1963: A Nation in Mourning

• January 1: Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), Japan's first serialized animated series based on the popular manga, is broadcast for the first time. It premieres on Japanese television station Fuji TV.
• January 3: Thirty-two German civilians, from Siberia, force their way into the United States Embassy in Moscow, describing themselves as "persecuted Christians" and seeking political asylum. After embassy officials tell the group that they could not stay, the people are placed on a bus and taken away by the Stasi. The 6 men, 12 women and 14 children are sent back to Chernogorsk that evening, after the U.S. Embassy received assurances that the group would get "good treatment".
• January 6: The British musical Oliver!, based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, makes its debut on Broadway, at the Imperial Theatre, and runs for 774 performances.
• January 8: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in an event attended by President Kennedy and 2,000 other guests of honor. The masterpiece is on view for 27 days in Washington, during which 674,000 visitors come to see it, then moved on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from February 6 to March 4.
• January 23: British forces launch a surprise invasion of Portugese Guinea, seeking to take the Guinea-Bissau Region. The Guinea-Bissau War commences.
• January 26: The Australia Day shootings rock Perth; 2 people are shot dead and 3 others injured by Eric Edgar Cooke.
• February 8: Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy Administration.
• February 14: Harold Wilson becomes leader of the opposition Labour Party in the United Kingdom.
• March 4: In Paris, six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle pardons five, but the other conspirator, Jean Bastien-Thiry, is executed by firing squad several days later. Intelligence suggests they were working under orders from the Reichspakt, but this is never conclusively proven.
• April 11: Pope John XXIII issues his final encyclical, Pacem in terris, entitled On Establishing Universal Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity and Liberty, the first papal encyclical addressed to "all men of good will", rather than to Roman Catholics only.
• April 12: The German nuclear powered submarine NU-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish Straits. Although severely damaged, both vessels make it to port.
• April 20: In Quebec, Canada, members of the terrorist group Front de libération du Québec bomb a Canadian Army recruitment center, killing night watchman Wilfred V. O'Neill. The group is suspected of being funded by the Reichspakt.
• April 22: Lester Bowles Pearson becomes the Governor-General of Canada.
• April 24: Germany decommissions its last gun dreadnought, the SMS Bismarck. It becomes a museum in Bremerhaven.
• April 29: Buddy Rogers becomes the first WWWF Champion.
• May 15: Project Mercury: NASA launches the first woman in space, Wally Funk, on Mercury 9, the last Mercury mission (on June 12 NASA Administrator James E. Webb tells Congress the program is complete).
• May 23: Fidel Castro visits Germany.
• June 9: The Dhofar Liberation Front launches a series of hit-and-run attacks on American military bases in Oman, ultimately seeking to remove the American presence in Arabia. The Dhofar War commences.
• June 20: Establishment of the Moscow–Washington hotline (officially, the Direct Communications Link or DCL; unofficially, the "red telephone"; and in fact a teleprinter link) is authorized by signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Geneva by representatives of Germany and the United States.
• June 21: Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) succeeds Pope John XXIII as the 262nd pope.
• August 5: The National Emergency Warning System (NEWS) is replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS).
• September 24: The United States Senate ratifies the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
• September 25: British and French forces engage in a border conflict around the oasis towns of Tindouf and Figuig, commencing the Sand War.
• October 10: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, signed on August 5, takes effect.
• October 19: Alec Douglas-Home succeeds Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister of Great Britain.
• November 1: Arecibo Observatory, a radio telescope, officially begins operation in Puerto Rico.
• November 13: Spanish aircraft launched from the carrier Dédalo attack Guatemala with low-yield nuclear weapons, causing widespread destruction at military bases. The United States dispatches a battle group that sinks the Dédalo and its complement in response. Spain then commences an amphibious invasion of Guatemala in retaliation for the destruction wrought by the United States upon Cuba during the previous year's war, commencning the Guatemalan War.
• November 22: Assassination of John F. Kennedy: In a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, U.S. President John F. Kennedy is fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, and Governor of Texas John Connally is seriously wounded at 12:30 CST. Upon Kennedy's death, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes the 36th President of the United States. A few hours later, President Johnson is sworn in aboard Air Force One, as Kennedy's body is flown back to Washington, D.C. Stores and businesses shut down for the next four days, in tribute.
• November 23: The long-running sci-fi television series Doctor Who premieres on BBC TV in the United Kingdom, starring William Hartnell as The Doctor.
• November 24: Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy, is almost shot by Jack Ruby in Dallas, an event seen on live national television. Ruby is apprehended before he can fire a shot.
• November 25: State funeral of John F. Kennedy: President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Schools around the nation cancel classes that day; millions watch the funeral on live international television.
• November 26: Lew Harvey Oswald confesses to having been hired by German intelligence to assassinate President Kennedy to destabilize the country.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS