Campaign History 500 Million BC to 1899

500,000,000 BC	The living starship, the Zodiakos Kyklos (which would one day serve as the Zodiac’s base) is created by an unknown race.
50,000 BC	A starship carrying Servitors of the Ancient Ones comes to Earth to investigate its potential for conquest by their masters. Due to an on-board mutiny, the starship crashes in what is now Norway and is trapped in the ice.
8275 BC	One thousand sorcerers from various dimensions, led by one known as Tyrannon of Thulkas, battle and defeat beings known then as gods. Each of the magicians merges with the power and essence of one of the gods. Tyrannon, however, subjugates and absorbs the power of most of the magicians, making him one of the most powerful beings of all of the universes. Those that Tyrannon did not subjugate he banished or imprisoned. He begins conquering all of the dimensions.
1575 BC	Zeus, leader of the Greek gods, slays his father Cronus, banishing his soul to Tartarus. Thus begins the reign of the Olympian gods.
1383 BC	The Minotaur is born as a result of the mating between the god Zeus and the human Europa.
1163 BC	The Minotaur befriends Drynnan Illar, one of the satyrs of legend. They found the group the Zodiac.
204 BC	The great island of Atlantis is caught up in a great cataclysm. The island sinks, but the Atlanteans are transformed to live under the sea.
51 BC	Cleopatra becomes ruler of Egypt.
44 BC	Julius Caesar assassinated.
408 AD	Nimue of Lyoness teaches the wizard Merlin.
413	Merlin helps Arthur to become king of Britain with the aid of the sword Excalibur. Camelot and the Round Table are formed.
419	Merlin is trapped by Nimue. Merlin’s disciples, the progenitors of the Homomagi race, leave England and travel to North America.
421	Morgan le Fey turns against Camelot. She and Mordred fight many battles against Arthur, with Morgan finally emerging victorious although Mordred is slain. Arthur is taken to Avalon to heal for his return “during Britain’s greatest time of need.”
428	Black Paladin is “killed” by Lancelot but is preserved in a sort of sleep by his lover, a witch.
460	The first Shaolin Temple is founded in China.
1199	Robin Hood is active in the English countryside, bedeviling King John Lackland  and the Sheriff of Nottingham.
1425	Drynnan Illar (now known as Capricorn) hears of a witch (a direct descendant of Black Paladin and his lover, a powerful witch) being tried in London. He travels there to learn more.
1437	Capricorn battles Stephen Masterson, the son of the witch. Capricorn defeats him after causing massive damage to the British countryside. Reluctantly, Stephen becomes Aquarius.
1459	Vlad Tepes becomes a vampire under uncertain circumstances.
Dec. 4, 1533	Ivan the Terrible proclaimed Grand Prince of Moscow at the age of 3.
1608	The Minotaur (Taurus) contacts and befriends an intelligent being/ship/computer in the vicinity of Earth. This ship eventually becomes their orbital base, the Zodiakos Kyklos.
1743	The Undying Tulku (Earth’s Archmage) passes into senility and his apprentice, Ugyen defeats the Oriental magicians known as the Tong as proof of the Council of Magi that he is worthy. Ugyen (later called the Reverend Elder) becomes the new Archmage of Earth.
1749	John Ward, the first Black Mask, is born on a farm outside of Philadelphia.
March 5, 1770	British soldiers fire on rioters in the Boston Massacre.
1772	John Ward first adopts the identity of the Black Mask, to protect his family while he performs acts of sabotage against the British Army.
April 19, 1775	American Revolution begins.
March 23, 1775	Patrick Henry declares “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Jan. 10, 1776	Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense.
March 17, 1776	British evacuate Boston.
July 4, 1776	The Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.
April 15, 1783	American Revolutionary War is declared over.
1788	John Ward retires the identity of Black Mask.
April 28, 1789	Mutiny against British naval captain William Bligh on his ship, the Bounty.
April 30, 1789	George Washington inaugurated as the first U.S. president. Madame Victory prevents a Tory assassin from killing the President. Washington is unaware of the attempt.
July 14, 1789	French citizens storm the Bastille, beginning the French Revolution.
Jan. 21, 1793	The Scarlet Pimpernel is unable to keep King Louis XVI of France from being executed.
Oct. 16, 1793	While able to rescue the Dauphin, the Scarlet Pimpernel is not able to save Marie-Antoinette from the guillotine.
1797	John Ward’s son, Timothy, a Boston silversmith, becomes the Black Mask and battles a band of criminals.
March 16, 1802	U.S. Military Academy founded at West Point, New York.
Dec. 2, 1804	Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor Napoleon I.
Jan. 8, 1815	Andrew Jackson defeats the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
Feb. 26, 1815	Napoleon escapes from the Island of Elba.
1817	Don Alejandro de la Vega dons the mask of Zorro.
1818	Black Mask II is killed in action. The training of his son, Samuel, is taken over by his grandfather, the first Black Mask.
1822	Black Mask III debuts in Philadelphia. By now the legend has grown across the northeastern United States, and the first rumors of the immortality of the young nation’s hero begin to spread.
March 2, 1829	Texas declares its independence from Mexico.
Feb. 23, 1836	The Alamo is besieged by the Mexican Army led by Santa Anna.
March 6, 1836	The Mexican Army storms into the Alamo.
Dec. 29, 1845	The annexation of the Republic of Texas is approved by the U.S. Congress.
Jan. 24, 1848	Gold discovered in California.
1850	Sherlock Holmes is born in London. He and his brother Mycroft are raised by roving gypsies after the death of their parents.
1852	John Watson is born in Coventry, England.
1853	Matthew Ward becomes Black Mask IV, at first operating out of Philadelphia.
April 3, 1860	The Pony Express begins operating. One of their first volunteers is a youth calling himself The Lightning Kid, a boy who can run faster than a horse. This marks the first time a paranormal has been hired to use metahuman powers on behalf of the government.
Oct. 1860	The Pony Express is shut down.
April 12, 1861	American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter.
1862	Matthew Ward, as Black Mask IV, fights alongside the Northern Army throughout the Civil War. The Confederates are aided by the mysterious Grey Ghost.
March 9, 1862	Civil War naval battle between the Monitor and Merrimack.
Jan. 1, 1863	President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.
June 1863	Rancher Duke Smith is killed in a gunfight in Montana Territory and walks away from it, earning the nickname “Dead Duke.”
April 9, 1865	General Robert E. Lee surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant.
April 14, 1865	President Abraham Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth.
1866	Matthew Ward moves to Chicago and continues his adventures as the fourth Black Mask.
Oct. 16, 1867	The Alaskan Purchase is approved by the Senate and Alaska becomes an American Territory.
1867-1868	Several ships sunk under mysterious circumstances begin rumors of a sea monster attacking ocean going vessels.
1868	Sherlock Holmes is tutored in advanced mathematics by Professor James Moriarty, later to become the greatest criminal figure of Victorian England.
Sept. 14, 1868	Captain Nemo is presumed dead after the submarine Nautilus sinks after becoming caught in a whirlpool.
1871	James Lee Ward inherits the Black Mask upon his father’s death. He moves to Arizona and transplants the legend, acting as a vigilante lawman.
May 1871	The Lightning Kid signs on as a scout with Lt. Colonel Custer.
1872	Taurus recruits the demons Ahrgash and Lohwegg and renames them Gemini for the Zodiac. Marvin Carr begins to act as Black Mask V’s sidekick.
Dec. 4, 1872	The Die Gratia, a small British brig, spots the Mary Celeste, an American vessel, sailing erratically but at full sail near the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was seaworthy, its stores and supplies were untouched, but not a soul was onboard. The crew was never found and the reason for the ship’s abandonment has never been determined.
1876	Black Mask V is killed by the notorious criminal sidewinder in a shoot-out in Show Low, Arizona. Since James’ son Jason is only two, Marvin Carr becomes the sixth Black Mask and the first not to be part of the direct lineage.
March 7, 1876	Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.
Aug. 1876	The James Gang finds an unpleasant surprise waiting for them when they attempt a robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. James “Iron Jim” Dubois, a man known to be invulnerable to bullets. In the ensuing chase, the entire James Gang is captured or killed except the brothers themselves.
1877	Sherlock Holmes opens his private “consulting” detective agency in London.
Feb. 19, 1878	Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.
1879	The Empire Club, a private “Gentleman’s Social Club” for adventurers, explorers and other daredevils, is founded in New York City.
1881	Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meet at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital during the case known as A Study In Scarlet.
March 1881	President Garfield makes “Tall Tim” Darnell a Federal Marshal, making him the first metahuman law enforcer in history. Darnell could increase his size to around twelve feet and was said to be able to throw a horse.
July 2, 1881	President James Garfield shot. Marshal Darnell apprehends the assassin, Charles Guiteau.
Sept. 19, 1881	President James Garfield dies.
1889	The Reverend Elder and Vincent Dimitrios defeat the Chernobog Demon in London, imprisoning it within a book.
July 10, 1980	Wyoming becomes the 44th state.
1887	Sherlock Holmes first encounters Dracula in Transylvania.
1888	Jack the Ripper terrorizes London.
1889	Adolf Hitler born in Braunau, Austria.
1890	Count Dracula terrorizes London before hi is apparently destroyed by vampire-hunter Abraham Van Helsing and young Jonathan Harker.
1891	Sherlock Holmes pursues his nemesis Moriarty to Switzerland, where they apparently perish at Reichenbach Falls.
1892	Mycroft Holmes becomes the director of the British Secret Service. He is referred to only as “M” (as have his successors).
Sept. 1892	The Lightning Kid is killed by Kyle Norton in a bar room fight over a young lady.
June 1893	Butch Cassidy is arrested by “Tall Tim” Darnell in Laramie, Wyoming and receives a five year sentence for horse thievery.
March 1894	“Flamin’ Jane” Fender is arrested for murdering Jack Pillman in South Dakota. In light of Pillman’s history it is likely that Fender was defending herself, but the gruesome manner in which he was killed by her flame projection powers prompt her arrest.
April 1894	Flamin’ Jane escapes custody and begins a series of robberies across the Dakota Territory.
Oct. 1894	Marshal Tim Darnell is gunned down by the cousin of a criminal he brought to justice.
1896	Marvin Carr retires as Black Mask VI. The mask is given back to Jason Ward, son of Black Mask V, who moves back to Chicago. For a time, his partner is Andrew Carr, Marvin’s own son.
April 23, 1896	First public showing of a motion picture.