[Places are listed under their Draka-timeline names. Their equivalent in our history is given in parenthesis on first mention. Thus, Virconium (Durban, South Africa); Shahnapur (Maputo, Mozambique); etc. Events prior to 1783 with an outcome different from that in our history are marked, thus*.]
1776 Outbreak of American Revolution. Major Patrick Ferguson invents early breechloading rifle.
1779 France, Spain, Netherlands* declare war on Great Britain.
1779 British fleet under Admiral Lord Cochrane lands occupying force in Capetown.*
1780 Colonel Ferguson's loyalists victorious in battle of King's Mountain.* Several Loyalist units, including Tarleton's Legion and the newly formed Ferguson's Legion, re-equipped with Ferguson breechloaders.* Savage partisan warefare throughout Southern colonies.
1781 General Cornwallis besieged at Yorktown in Virginia, surrenders to American rebels and their French allies.
1782 British naval victories in Caribbean, occupation of Haiti and Trinidad.*
1783 Second Peace of Paris. Anwrican independence recognized; British Florida and her conquests in Caribbean are exchanged for possession of Dutch Cape Colony.*
1783 Loyalty Acts passed by British Parliament: the Cape is renamed the Crown Colony of Drakia, and all colonials who fought or otherwise suffered for their loyalty to the Crown are offered transport and land grants; so are the Hessian and other German mercenaries in British service at the time. Legislative Assembly meets in Capetown. General Patrick Ferguson is first Governor-General.
1780-83 First Loyalist refugees arrive in Capetown. Conquest of Southern Africa begun; border pushed to Tugela River.
1783-86 95,000 Loyalists and their families (not including some 10,000 slaves) arrive; 10,000 Hessians soon follow, with relatives and families arriving in a steady trickle from Germany. At this time the Dutch Afrikaner population is less than 9,000, and is soon assimilated through intermarriage.
1784 Founding of Virconium (Durban, South Africa), and Venta Belgarum (East London, South Africa). General Banastare Tarleton becomes first Commander-in-Chief.
1783-84 Volcanic eruptions devastate Iceland. 25,000 Icelanders offered asylum in Drakia, arriving 1783-86.
1784 Diamonds discovered in northern interior. Founding of Archona (Pretoria, South Africa)
1785 Gold discovered on Whiteridge (Whitwaterstrand) and in eastern Archona Province (Transvaal). First steam engines imported. Output reaches 1,000,000 ounces by 1786.
1786 Drakian Legislative Assembly passes Indentured Labor and Master and Servant Acts, establishing system of debt-peonage for conquered non-white population. This rapidly becomes indistinguishable from chattel slavery, which is also practiced.
1786-90 Rapid growth of economist and population. Export trades in diamonds, gold, copper, sugar, wool, salt, hides, ivory, etc., established. Drakian ships active in Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades. Zanzibar seized in 1789; Aden, 1791. Free population reaches 175,000; slave/serf 2,000,000. Transportation Directorate established to build road network to mines and settlements of far interior.
1788 Colonel Freiherr Augustus von Shrakenberg retires, receives 20,000 acre land grant under Maluti Mountains, South Interior province (Lesotho). Marries Alexandra Hugeson, of a New Jersey loyalist family.
1790-92 Universities of Cape Town, Virconium, and Archona founded. Anglican bishoprics established in Cape Town and Virconium.
1792 Conquest of Northmark (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe); settlement and development proceed. Gold output exceeds 2,000,000 ounces annually.
1793 First coal mine in northern Natalia. Outbreak of French Revoulutionary/Napolconic wars.
1790-96 - Period of rapid growth continues, with serious slave/serf revolts in 1792, 1794 and 1795-97. Slave Code of 1797 grants all free-men power of life and death over "slaves and other bondservants." Militia Act of 1792 establishes peacetime conscription and reserve service to age 60. Women's Militia Auxiliary founded as volunteer group. First Janissary Legion recruited from slaves bought in West Africa.
1795 African Mining and Metals Combine founded, Granted monopoly of large-scale mining, leases smaller deposits to discoverers. School of Mines founded in Archona.
1796 Richard Trevithick arrives in Virconium from Cornwall, appointed Inspector-General of Steam Engines by Mining Combine.
1799 Founding of Diskaral)ur (Newcastle, South Africa) and Shahnapur (Maputo, Mozambique). Trade with India Produces fad for Persian/Moghul artwork.
1794-97 French Population of Santo Domingo/Haiti flees before slave revolt. 11,000 arrive in Drakia. Royalists from European France follow.
1800 Free Population reaches 350,000. First iron-works, machine shops, shipbuilding yards started as Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars render imports uncertain. Cotton becomes important crop. Large-scale public works in roads, harbors, irrigation.
1800-02 Conquest of Egypt (occupied by French) and Ceyton, a possession of Dutch Republic allied with France. French colonies in West Africa seized.
1803 Revolt in Egypt suppressed, 300,000 rebels deported to Sinai work camps to begin construction of Suez Canal.
1803 High-pressure steam engine perfected by Richard Trevithick. Construction of Archona-Virconium railway line begins in 1805.
1804 First steam "drags" (trucks) and steamships.
1807 Ottoman Empire declares war on Britain due to Drakian refusal to evacuate Egypt. Drakian forces seize.Cyprus, Crete, Tunisia. Suez Canal completed.
1812 Americans overrun and annex British North America.
1815-16 Peace of Vienna confirms Africa as British/Drakian preserve. Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique purchased. British veterans and Napoleonic refugees immigrate. Madagascar conquered.
1820 Cache of papyrus manuscripts round in Western Desert by Drakian Camel Corps patrol. Virtually all lost works of Classical literature and philosophy recovered (e.g., Sappho, Euripides, Aristotle, etc.). Classical revival affects Drakian culture. Foundation of Alexandria; growth of Combines. Petroleum first used as motor fuel, 1831.
1820-40 Rapid growth of export agriculture and manufacturing/transport. Abolitionist groups in England and northern U.S. begin cultural political campaign against Drakia for alleged "depravity" and other violations of Victorian middle-class norms, This produces defiant anti-bourgeois sentiment in Drakia. Thomas Carlyle emigrates to Drakia.
1800-40 "Drakia" becomes elided to "Draka" in popular usage. Free population reaches 1,000,000. Conquest of North Africa requires mobilization of over 150,000 men for most of period 1825-1850. Increased employment of citizen women produces legal reforms, franchise agitation.
1848-49 Mexican-American War. "Young America" faction forces annexation of all of Mexico, over objections of President Polk.
1850 First transcontinental railway (Shahnapur-Luanda). Katanga copper discovered. Mombasa-Nile line built. Conquest of Sudanand Senegal. Brass-cartridge repeating rifle adopted by Draka forces. R.J. Gatling settles in Diskarapur, develops world's first practical machinegun.
1854-57 Draka expeditionary forces assist British in Crimean War and Indian Mutiny. Dominion of Draka Act, 1858, grants "responsible government" to Draka (practical sovereignty in effect). Hall process patented by Ferrous Metals Combine, enables steel to be produced as cheaply as wrought iron. Rival Bessemer method quickly eclipsed.
1854 Cuba, Philippines, Hawaii, Haiti, and Santo Domingo annexed by United States. Japan opened to Western trade. "Empire of Central America" established by Southern adventurers under command of William Walker, extends from Guatemala to Panamanian territories seized from Columbia.
1860-1866 American Civil War begins as President Douglas bombards Savannah. Dominion of Draka provides massive clandestine aid (repeating rifles, gatling guns, steam warships, steam-powered warcars) to Confederacy. Union casualties exceed 700,000,including large numbers of Mexican conscripts. Mexian territories achieve statehood. Douglas assassinated in 1865 by Confederate fanatic; Vice-President Lincoln inaugurated.
1866-70 Louis Pasteur, at Shahnapur Institute Of Tropical Medicine, establishes mosquito vector of malaria. World total of private auto- steamers reaches 100,000, 75 percent of them in Dominion of Draka. Panama Canal under construction. Taiping Dynasty established in China, failure of effort to modernize. Bismarck unites Germany. Antiseptic surgery, anesthetics.
1865-68 150,000 Confederate refugees settle in Dominion of Drakia. Central American Empire annexed by United States. Freidrich Nietzsche immigrates to Domination.
1872 Steam turbine peiftcted by Alexandrian Technological Institute. First rigid dirigibles. Archona and Alexandria become first cities to establish telephone networks. Uraguay and Paraguay annexed by Empire of Brazil. Columbia, Venezuela, and Ecuador establish Republic of Grand Columbia. Australasian Federation unites Australia, New Zealand. Electric lighting.
1879-82 Anglo-Russian war, fought largely in Bulgaria and Afghanistan. Dominion of Draka rescues British from defeat; Odessa destroyed by Draka dirigible raid; worldwide condemnation of 50,000 civilian casualties. Draka introduce land mines, submarines, poison gas. Austro-German alliance with Ottoman Empire, construction of Berlin-Baghdad railway. Uprisings in Congo Basin result in large-scale deportations and unrest.
1882 First transAtlantic flight by Draka dirigible, from Apollonaris (Dakar, Senegal) to Recife, Brazil. Women's Auxiliary Corps made permanent part of Draka forces (in noncombatant roles). Free population of Dominion reaches 10,000,000. Bondservant Identification and Control Act requires fingerprinting and neck-tattooing of all serfs. Security Directorate founded as successor to General Constabulary. Karl von Shrakenberg born.
1883 Revolt of serfs in textile mills of Alexandria (Alexandria, Egypt) suppressed; 150,000 dead. Cape Town-Alexandria railway completed.
1890 Nomenclature Amendment Act makes popular term "serf" for debt-peons official.
1891 Libyan and Algerian oil fields discovered. Submachine gun developed by Technical Section of Draka armed forces.
1892-96 Regular airship lines established in several continents. Diesel engines invented, put into general use for dirigible and other special Uses. Autostreamer output in U.S. surpasses Dominion of Draka's for first time.
1897 Diskarapur Institute team achieves heavier than-air flight with steam-turbine aircraft. An internal-combustion model flies in France a year later.
1898 Hawaii, Cuba, and Philippines become states of U.S. Guatemala and other Central American territories follow. William Jennings Bryan President.
1899 Military reform in England produces general election. Chinese- Japanese war; Japan annexes Formosa, Hainan, Korea, several ports. Thermionic valve invented. Radio broadcasts.
1900 Japanese-British naval alliance. Anglo-German naval/dirigible armaments race begins. Germany, Austria, and Turkey sign Triple Alliance. France and Russia form Double Entente. Britain begins staff talks with France. Motion pictures with sound become common in U.S., shortly later, elsewhere.
1905 Russo-Japanese war, catastrophic Russian defeat; first instance of battleships sunk by aerial bombardment. Japan annexes Manchuria, establishes quasi-protectorate over weak Taiping government of China; attempts at occupation bog down. Revolution in Russia produces limited constitutional anarchy, administrative chaos. Experimentation with internal combustion engine for ground transport, esp. for military purposes. Wars in Balkans, etc. Women declared liable for peacetime conscription, for noncombatant and second-line tasks in Domination. Steam turbine used for railways.
1914 Dominion of Draka has free population of 28,000,000; serfs, 210,000,000. Total population of U.S. reaches 140,000,000. GNP of both nearly identical, but with great differences in distribution, etc.
1914-19 Great War between Triple Alliance and Entente powers (Joined by U.S. in 1917, under President Theodore Roosevelt). Draka defeat Austrian and Turkish forces, occupy Middle East, Thrace, Bulgaria. Widespread use of dirigible bombers, firestorm and poison-gas bombardments. Biplane pursuit fighters developed as defense. Civilian casualties in the 500,000 to 3,000,000 range in all maor combatants except the Draka and U.S. Revolution in Russia followed by Draka seizure of Central Asia, much of western China. Turbocompound engine developed, antibiotics, self-loading rifles, portable machine guns. Tank introduced on stalemated Western Front by both sides in 1916. John von Shrakenberg born.
1918 Eric von Shrakenberg born. Draka Women's Auxiliary Corps abolished; women integrated into military. More noncombat and near- combat tasks opened to female personnel.
1919 Unconditional surrender of Germany. Peace of Versailles. Draka refuse mediation of Powers, annex all conquests, enter period of economic and diplomatic isolation; last tie's with Britian cut off, "Domination" becomes official title. U.S. also enters isolationist phase. Defeat of attempt at Prohibition in U.S. Marijuana beconws major social problem, Mexican songsters prominent in many cities. Yazz age.
1920-22 Second Russian Civil War between rivals to succeed Lenin. Stalin victorious. "Hermit Kingdom" established, forced-draft industrialization.
1921 Mussolini takes power in Italy, seizes Dalmatian coast and Montenegro. Japanese de-throne last Taiping emperor and annex all of China not overrun by Draka.
1925 Domination invades and annexes Afghanistan. Prolonged resistance results in death of 65 percent of population; wars of pacification in other areas of New Territories. Gradual abolition of remaining restrictions on female personnel in Draka armed forces, with complete unification in 1933. Fuel cell developed as power source; experimental use in submarines. Hormonal contraceptives. Advances in Quantum theory.
1930 Stock market crisis leads to mild but chronic recession outside Domination. First chain reaction observed. Closed-circuit television. Eva and Asa von Shrakenberg born. Death of Mary von Shrakenberg.
1932 Hitler elected with majority in Germany. F.D. Roosevelt elected President in U.S.; declares "New Deal" for lower classes, Hispanics, etc. Limited recovery.
1936-37 Civil war in Spain; defeat of Nationalists by 1937. Soviet Republic of Spain established. Germany takes Austria. French and British abandon Czechoslovakia; Sudeten War follows. Clashes on Draka- japanese and Draka-Soviet borders. Experiments with electrodetection (radar) in several countries. Domination begins long-term project to harness nuclear energy. Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi move to U.S.
1940 Fall of France. Battle of Britain ends in stalemate; Nazi submarines effectively close Atlantic. Japanese aggression in Southeast Asia produces severe tension with U.S., Australasian Federation.
1941 Domination attacks Italy with tacit consent of Germany. Germany attacks and defeats Soviet Union. Moscow falls October 1; Germans reach Urals and Caucasus by first snow. Imperial Japan attacks U.S. on December 3rd, occupies eastern Siberia, destroys entire American Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. Hawaii, Philippines overrun. West Coast raided, landings made in Panama. U.S. declares war on Japan and Germany.
April: Draka airborne legions seize passes over Caucasus mountains. German Sixth Army surrenders. Battle of the Kuban; massive armoured engagements. Leapfrogging pincer movements combined with offensive from northwest Kasahkstan shatter German Army Group South. Draka amphibious forces land in Crimea. In September, another front is opened in Balkans, with Draka attack out of the Domination's Bulgarian province. By October, all of the Ukraine is in Draka hands, and the Germans are forced to withdraw their Army Group Center to the eastern frontiers of Poland.
November: Belgrade falls to Arch-Strategos Edgar Tull's 4th Army. Arch Strategos Estelle Finbogasson's 7th Army reaches Hungarian frontier. Draka airborne forces seize Trieste, reach Adriatic. Ten divisions of German troops cut off in Serbia, many escape to mountains, join partisan forces of Mihailovic.
December: Dec. 15, Hitler dies - officially of heart attack, actually poisoned by agents of Admiral Canaris, head of German Military Intelligence. Coalition government of military, Nazi party, SS and anti-nazi conservatives takes power, with Herman Goering as Chancellor. ("Fuhrer" is declared a unique position which only the inpired Adolf Hitler could bear.) New regime promises increased autonomy for west Europeans (although prosecution of the Jews continues as "quid pro quo" for unreconstructed Nazi elements) and calls on all Europeans to rally to Germany for defense against the Draka, send peace feelers to U.S. and Britain. Domination secretly threatens to ally with Japan if Western powers make a separate peace with Germany. American and U.K. remain technically at war with Third Reich. Indian National Congress takes power in India, declares independence and neutrality.
Widespread support from France, Belgium, Scandinavia for new German government. Soviet Republic of Spain remains neutral.
1942-43 Both sides in European war pause; the Draka have outrun their logistic train and are frantically building up supplies and repairing road-rail links in the territories behind their lines. Germany has lost 2,500,000, dead and prisoner, plus most of the heavy equipment stationed in the East and much productive capacity. Scores of new French, Belgian, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Swiss divisions are raised. Minor ground action and intensive air action along front lines.
Technological developments in l940 to 1943: millimetric wave radar, Reaction-jet fighters in Domination, Germany, U.K., U.S. Helicopters deployed for observation, casualty evacuation by Draka, U.S., Germany, Draka test prototype tiltrotor VTOL transport, VTOL jet with plenum chamber boost. Fuel cell powered submarines by Germany, U.S. All- transistor programmable digital computer (U.S., 1943); first nuclear power reactors, plutonium (Domination 1941, U.S. 1942). Long-range liquid fuel rockets, Germany. Television-guided glide bontbs, radar-guided cruise missiles (U.S. Both crude, but useable.)
1943 U.S. jet fighters and glide bombs inflict severe defeat on Japanese navy in Battle of the Sea of Cortez, defeat attempt to land in Baja California. Japanese evicted from Panama Canal Zone. South American powers sign first Treaty of Rio with U.S., declare war on Axis and co-ordinate economic, diplomatic policy. U.S. submarine fleet begins destruction of japanese merchant marine on huge scale. U.S., Brazilian, Australasian forces totalling 2,000,000 defeat Japanese in New Guinea (a highly-developed area in Domination's timeline) and begin offensive into Indonesia. U.S. surface navy reappears in Pacific, together with British forces. Tension and skirmishes but no full-scale warfare between Domination and Japanese Empire on landfrontiers in Asia. Vast economic mobilization in Western hemisphere, armament production of U.S.-U.K.-South American- Australasian "Alliance For Democracy" outpaces Domination and Third Reich combined.
April thru September: German counter-offensive is allowed to penetrate central Rumania, then cut off by Draka. Draka attack on 1,000-mile front, intially mostly with Janissary forces. Armoured breakthrough into central Poland followed by attack to Baltic; German forces in East Prussia cut off. Some rocket-research project personnel (eg. von Braun) and much equipment evacuated to Bordeaux, France. Others seized by Draka, turned over to Technical Section. Bohemia, Hungary overrun; Janissaries enter outskirts of Budapest on June 1, Vienna on September 10. Both sides now using nerve-gas, jet and rocket-propelled fighters, long-distance rockets.
September thru December: main Draka offensive begins across north Poland. Vistula and Oder lines forced, Silesia overrun. Heavy casualties on both sides; offensive into Bavaria bogs down in difficult mountain country. Fortress Berlin encircled November 25; Warsaw falls November 29th. German and other European forces attempt to contain Draka Offensive along upper Danube, Elbe. Outskirts of Hamburg under Draka artillery fire by year's end; slow, grinding offensive continues. "Pan-European" emergency government under Edouard Daladier meets in Brussels, de Gaulle returns to continent, further purge of National Socialist elements from new pan-European military (now less than one-half German). Soviet Spain joins pan- Europe. Nazi concentration canips in East are liberated by Draka, who make adroit use of their propaganda value to keep U.S. hostile to Europeans.
Alliance (basically Anglo-U.S.) aircraft carriers meet, defeat japanese navy's main strike force west of Hawaii. Reconquest of Hawaii begins; well-armed Japanese garrison resists fanatically. Alliance forces also advancing in eastern Indonesia, again with heavy losses. Japanese begin to strip forces on Asian mainland to meet Alliance threat. U.S. subinarines sink more than 40% of japanese cargo tonnage, begin economic strangulation of Japanese heartland as food, raw materials and petroleum cut off.
1944 "Taos Project" detonates first fission bomb (plutoniuin, shaped-charge implosion type, 40 kilo-tonnes) on February lst, in New Mexico. First Draka test (uranium bomb, two sub-critical masses) on March 4, in central Sahara. Both countries begin work on series production, fusion weapons.
April: Draka jet bombers deliver five-weapon nuclear strike against Ruhr valley, Brussels. Conventional offensive smashes through to Rhine; amphibious landings in southern Spain are contained in narrow beachheads. Last resistance in Berlin eliminated. Emergency pan-European fission project unsuccessful, due to uranium and heavy-water shortages. Mass flight of refugees from western Germany to France, Belgium. Famine in Central Europe. Covert Anglo-American aid to Europeans.
Two nuclear-armed cruise missiles fired from Alliance submarines against main Japanese fleet in lagoon of Truk island, central Pacific. One malfunctions; the other destroys three of the seven remaining Japanese fleet carriers and much else besides. Alliance offensives continue across Pacific and north from Indonesia.
May-July: Draka cross Rhine in three places; Airborne legion destroyed in attempted seizure of Strasbourg. Widespread casualties from fallout, little understood by either side. Demoralization among remaining European forces.
August thru October. Paris falls. Mass exodus of European refugees across Channel to England, also from Denmark (now cut off), Norway, totalling 5,000,000 before Draka forces reach Atlantic. France occupied, European forces fall back to Pyrenees.
December. Tokyo destroyed by cruise missile from Alliance submarine; Imperial family and most high government officials killed, casualties exceed 150,000. New government of fanatical younger officers takes power, vows revenge. Widespread starvation in Japan as imports cut off; 80% of merchant tonnage sunk. Most remaining naval units destroyed in Battle of Philippines. Japanese control now limited to Siberia, eastern China, Korea and the home islands.
1945 January-March: Sweden surrenders, Norway, Netherlands occupied by Draka; Finland and Switzerland isolated for future attention. Pyrenees forced after blitz with remaining stockpile (12) of fission weapons wipes out major concentrations of Euro-Spanish forces, communication centers etc. Spain overrun. Massive shift of Draka forces to Far East begins by rail and airship. Europe from the Urals to the Atlantic, from North Cape to Gibraltar, is under Draka occupation; also devastated and starving. The Draka forces are thinly stretched, concentrating on the main cities and lines of communication. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, armed fragments of European armies and followers of dozens of political and nationalistic movemnts are drifting, regrouping and beginning active resistance, only momentarily cowed by the psychological impact of nuclear weapons.
Alliance forces occupy Taiwan and Hainan. Widespread revolt in areas of China occupied by Japanese; Peking largely destroyed in reprisals. Kyushu invaded, occupied at cost of 250,000 Alliance dead. Osaka destroyed by Alliance fission bomb.
June: Draka launch Far Eastern Offensive with 4,000,000 troops, from the Amur river in the north to Wuhan in the south. The Japanese forces are cut into pockets and isolated as the Domination's heavy armour, mechanized infantry and airmobile forces (including several helicopter-bourne chiliarchies) sweep through to the Paciftc, overrunning all of China and Korea. The "pockets" of japanese later prove expensive to mop up, in one case requiring a nuclear weapon. Archon Palme declares annexation of all territories occupied during the course of the war. Southern border of Domination now rests on Paciftc, from there across northern Vietnam, Burma, India and south to Indian Ocean. All the rest of continental Eurasia is "under the yoke."
July: Japanese surrender unconditionally to Alliance when faced with the prospect of a Draka invasion and further nuclear bombardment. Eurasian War ends.
2nd Treaty of Rio continues Alliance For Democracy on permanent basis. Grand Council of U.S., U.K., Brazil to set policy. Assembly of member states includes all South America, Southeast Asian Federation (Indochina, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia), India (includes our Pakistan and Burma), Australasian Federation. Free trade, joint military forces, Joint currency, local autonomy.
1945 Strategos Eric von Shrakenberg married to Sofie Nixon, Nova Cartago (Bizerte, Tunisia). Civil ceremony, Johanna and Karl von Shrakenberg witnesses.
1946 Senior Decurion McWhirter killed by terrorist time-bomb while on anti-partisan duty near Bratislava, Carpathian Province. Italy declared open for settlement; Johanna von Shrakenberg married to Centurion Thomas Ingolfsson at Claestum Plantation, their Tuscan estate. Eric and Sofie von Shrakenberg witnesses; Karl von Shrakenberg, Dominarch. John Teesdale also present.
1946-50's Guerilla and terrorist warfare in newly occupied portions of Domination. Deportations, executions, etc. All schools in Europe closed, printed material confiscated. Death penalty for unauthorized education, possession of radio receiver. Partial demobilization of Draka armed forces; conversion to airmobile light infantry units widespread, Janissaries kept at strength and new units recruited from Europe, Asia. Plantations set up in more secure zones of new territories, compound factory system extended. Massive economic reconstruction, "megaprojects": damming of Mediterranean Sea at Gibraltar, redirection of Arctic rivers to Central Asia, etc.
First fusion bomb exploded Bikini atol, February 1947 by Alliance project headed by Oppenheimer. Refugee German scientists working under direction of Alliance project headed by Dr. Clarke begin development of ramjet (later scramjet) suborbital missile to deliver "sun bomb".
First integrated circuits, State of Ontario, 1949. Laser invented, University of Buenos Aires, 1953. DNA identified, Tashkent Institute, 1951. Extensive Draka research into mind altering chemicals, molecular biology, etc. First transplant of fertilized human ova, Alexandria institute, 1956. Recombinant DNA techniques developed, late 1950s.
Draka fusion bomb, 1949. Missile projects follow. Nuclear submarine, 1948.
Surpersonic flight, 1947 (Draka). Earth-to-orbit turbojet-scramjet-rocket, Alliance Aerospace force, 1958 (unmanned). First Draka flight to orbit, 1960. First manned flight to orbit, 1959 (Alliance), 1961 (Draka). Alliance permanent space station, 1962. Draka, 1962. Alliance nuclear-pulse deepspace propulsion test, 1963.
1967 S.L.A. Marshall elected president of U.S. O.S.S. begins clandestine operations in support of European Resistance. Switzerland surrenders to Draka after mass famine. Finland crushed, but becomes "hardship posting" due to extensive resistance. Mass deportations of Finns to east Asia.
France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ukraine declared open for Draka settlement.
Strategos Eric von Shrakenberg retires from active list, appointed Senator, junior member of Long-Range Strategic Planning project. Publishes "The Price of Victory", novel of war experiences. Security Directorate fails to have it banned, due to Senatorial immunity, and it becomes a best seller, esp. among young war veterans. Sweden, North China, Korea declared open for settlement. Price of unskilled European serf drops to 53 aurics.
Draka Harmost of Loire Province (northern France) killed with most of her staff by mass poisoning at official banquet at Versailles marking third anniversary of Provincial status. OSS "infiltrators" blamed; clashes between Draka and Alliance aircraft over English channel. Ten thousand Parisians impaled along Champs Elysces in reprisal.
Uprising in Barcelona overruns Security Directorate H.Q. Draka personnel evacuated by helicopter and city destroyed by nuclear bomb. Films, survivors shown over occupied Europe.
1948 Frederick and Marya Lefarge born, Hospital of the Sacred Heart, New York.
1954 Yolande Ingolfsson born, Claestum Plantation, Italy. Myfwany Venders born, Arethustra Plantation, Sicily.
1955 Ramjet suborbital missile exceeds Mach 8.
1959 First scramjet flight to orbit.
1961 Space stations. First "perscomp" marketed in Alliance, by Pacific CyberSystems
1962 Manned moon landings; first permanent Lunar settlements.
1963 Successful activated transfer of mammalian genes, Virunga Biocontrol Institute. Alliance tests nuclear-fission pulsedrive vessel. First-generation drive, using modified tactical weapon and graphite-sheathed steel thrust plates. Domination tests pulsedrive.
1964 Alliance, Draka expeditions to Asteroid 13cit, Mars. High-boost probes to Venus, Mercury, outer planets launched from Earth Orbit.
1965 Magnetic catapult launchers on Luna, supply of minerals to orbital fabricators in zero-G.
1966 First free-electron laser boost to orbit from Earth.
1968-69 Two-ship Van Riebeck expedition to Jupiter; one lost.
First Apollo-group (Earth-crossing) asteroid, captured, brought into Earth orbit.
1970 Second-generation pulsedrives; subcritical plutonium pellets compressed by collision from railguns. Liquid reaction mass used to cover carbon steel thrustplates. Permanent Draka settlement on Mars; orbital stations, mining operations on Martian moons.
1972 Space-generated solar power beamed to Earth via microwaves.
1975 Secession of Indian Republic from Alliance for Democracy. Draka conquest of India.
1980 Third-generation pulsedrives; fission pellets compressed by lasers. Fourth-generation pulsedrives; deuterium-tritium fusion pellets imploded by laser/electron beam system.
1989 First planet-based fusion reactors Nova Virconium, Mars.
1996 Fifth-generation pulsedrive; deuterium-boron-11 fusion pellets.
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