The game starts in 1961. Here's a brief timeline to help you plan out your character backgrounds. Events marked with an asterisk are not generally public knowledge but might fit into your backstory.

1960
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• Grottu, a giant ant, is created by soviet bomb tests in Kenya.
• Scientists in the US accidentally cause a lizard to grow into Droom, a giant lizard.
• Prince T'Challa of the obscure African country Wakanda graduates from Oxford with a phd in physics
• Transatlantic Apollo Air Flight DF-0301 vanishes over the ocean; international search efforts fail.

1959
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• Castro gains power in Cuba
• Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Big Bopper die in plane crash
• * A Yautja lands for a hunt in Hollywood. He attacks the offices of American National Pictures and then the Atomic Drive-In
• Norman Bates is arrested when it is discovered that he had his mother's corpse and emulated her personality

1958
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• Mao launches his Five Year Plan in China
• Nasa is established
• Godzilla attacks Tokyo
• Camp Crystal Lake is shut down after two camp counselors are murdered in the woods
• Last Namor sightings

1957
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• The Soviets launch Sputnick I and II, the first artificial sattelites
• The UN occupies Gaza
• Bobby Fischer becomes the youngest ever chess champion at 13
• * Young Jason Voorhees drowns at Camp Crystal Lake
• A number of murders occur in Derry, Maine
• * Indiana Jones finds the Crystal Skull

1956
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• Martin Luther King Jr emerges as the face of the desegregation movement
• Serious study of Mutants begins

1955
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• Montgomery Bus Boycotts
• Rock Around the Clock is the first rock n roll hit
• Criminal mastermind Yellow Claw surfaces
• Last sightings of the original Human Torch

1954
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• Televised HUAC hearings
• First edition of Lord of the Rings published
• Godzilla awoken by American nuclear subs; MONARCH formed to study it
• A group of researchers find a prehistoric "gillman" in the Amazon River.

1953
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• Queen Elizabeth crowned
• Korean aristace signed
• The Human Torch and Namor resurface
• Timely Comics license the adventures of Marvel Boy, the last major licensing

1952
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• Anti-British riots in Egypt

1951
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• The Rosenbergs are executed for espionage
• Eccentric millionaire Andrew Ryan's planned community Rapture cuts off communication with the surface world

1950
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• Johannesburg riots against Apartheid
• North Korea invades South Korea, captures Seol, but the UN recovers it
• Captain America retires
• * Micky opens Mighty Mick's Gym in Philadelphia

1949
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• China becomes a communist country under Mao
• Apartheid in South Africa
• Bucky retires
• Namor returns to Atlantis
• The Human Torch disappears
• * Reed Richards and Ben Grim begin their military tour of duty
• * Donald Blake graduates State College

1948
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• Ghandi is assassinated
• Israel comes into existence
• USSR blockades Berlin
• The All-Winners Squad moves into the Baxter Building, New York and slowly disbands
• Namor becomes more of a humanitarian

1947
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• India gains independence and is partitioned
• Dead Sea Scrolls disovered
• Three UFOs crash near Roswell, New Mexico
• Captain America framed for murder, cleared by Bucky
• * A Yautja hunts mobsters during a turf war between the gangs of mob bosses Tony Vincenzo and Bernie Jinks

1946
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• Atomic Bomb Tests in the Bikini Atol
• * Captain America II is killed. Jeff Mace becomes the new Captain America
• Truman forms All-Winners Squad from second Captain America, Bucky, Sub-Mariner, Human Torch and Toro, as well as Whizzer and Miss America from the Liberty Legion, with Liason Betty Ross
• Miss America commissions a comic for the team to boost popularity
• Black Marvel retires
• Eccentric Millionaire Andrew Ryan begins construction of an underwater city, Rapture

1945
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• World War II ends
• UN charter signed.
• The Red Skull is killed
• * Captain America and Bucky are lost. Replacements are commissioned in secret.
• Namor represents Atlantis at the Pottsdam convention
• * Logan captured in Nagasaki
• The Liberty Legion dissolved
• * Nick Fury takes the Infinity formula
• Firey Mask, Blue Blade, Witness, Phantom Reporter, Laughing Mask, Mister E, Rockman, Mastermind Exello, Black Widow, Captain Wonder, Dynamic Man and the Electro all go missing in the last days of the war in Berlin
• The Human Torch and Toro kill Hitler

1944
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• Heavy air raids in London
• D-Day
• Failed coup attempt in Germany
• Germans unveil V-2 rockets
• Battle of the Bulge
• * Nazis occupy Castle Dracula; Dracula kills them
• Hitler orders von Struker's death, he escapes
• Young Allies split up
• Tarzan sent to USAAF as observer by British

1943
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• Coal miners strike; War Labor Board orders mines taken over by government.
• Zoot suits and jitterbug in fashion
• Jeff Jordan and Tim exposed to Wonder Gas, becoming Captain Wonder and... Tim.
• * Victor von Doom scouted by US military; given scholarship to State University
• * Reed Richards and Ben Grim also at State

1942
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• US inters Japanese in camps
• Millions of Jews murdered in gas chambers
• First automatic computer developed in US
• Liberty Legion forms to defeat brainwashed Invaders, later protects US Homefront. Bucky, Patriot, Miss America, Whizzer, Thin Man, Jack Frost, Red Raven, Blue Diamond
• * Dracula aids Nick Fury against Nazis
• Union Jack joins the Invaders
• Nick Fury appointed to Howling Commandos

1941
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• Germans invade Russia. Japanese bomb pearl harbor.
• US and Britain declare war on Japan.
• Japan invades Phillipines, take Hong Kong
• Namor kidnaps Roosevelt but considers him the lesser evil compared to the Nazis. forms Invaders with Captain America, Human Torch, Bucky, and Toro, at Churchill's suggestion
• Young Allies founded for propaganda purposes. Bucky, Toro, Knuckles, Washington Jones, Tubby. Jeff.
• Jeff Mace inspired by Captain America, becomes the Patriot.
• Red Raven, Jack Frost, Miss America, Black Marvel, The Witness, Rockman all active

1940
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• Germany invades Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Paris.
• RAF night bombing of Germany.
• Battle of Britain, London Blitz
• Trotsky assassinated
• Namor is captured and executed for killing a police officer but survives and renews his war against the surface world
• Human Torch appears in New York
• Angel active in New York
• The Phantom Bullet has a short career; is murdered
• Firey Mask, Mister E, the Laughing Mask, Phantom Mask, Flexo, Dynamic Man, Marvex the Robot, Excello, Invisible Man all fight crime
• Captain America and Bucky unveiled

1939
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• Germany invades Poland, kicking off World War II as Britain and France declare war.
• Selling arms to Europe recovers the US economy
• * Logan is in a Canadian military unit
• * Namor is captured by the Nazis; he escapes but they learn of Atlantis
• Namor rampages around New York but a female cop Betty Dean convinces him to join the allies against the Nazis
• * Moira breaks up with Charles Xavier and he begins his third tour of duty
• Tarzan joins the RAF

1938
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• Welles' production of War of the Worlds
• Howard Hughes flies around the world
• *Indiana Jones finds the Ark of the Covenant near Cairo and prevents the Nazis from taking it to Berlin.

1937
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• Amelia Earhart lost over Pacific
• Hindenburg burns
• Japanese take several cities; Chaing Kai-shek and Mao team up to repel

1936
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• Franco in power in Spain
• Boulder Dam constructed
• Jesse Owens wins 4 gold at Berlin Olympics
• Doctor Zog creates the android Electro to fight crime
• FDR is saved by mercenary adventurer Dominic Fortune

1935
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• Doc Savage rumored to be working with The Shadow
• * Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr. travels to India where he stops Mola Ram, leader of the Thuggee cult, from using the Sankara stones for his evil purposes.

1934
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• Mao's Long March to escape purges.
• FBI shoots Dillinger
• Whizzer begins fighting crime

1933
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• Hitler Chancellor of Germany
• Chicago World Fair
• Prohibition repealed
• Starvation in USSR
• First Loch Ness Monster sightings
• The Spider kills criminals

1932
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• Bonus army marches on Washington to demand benefits
• Indian Congress declared illegal, Gandhi arrested
• Lindbergh baby kidnapped
• * Logan is with Ogun in Japan

1931
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• Capone arrested for tax evasion
• Empire State Building is complete; is climbed by giant ape King Kong
• Doc Savage dedicates himself to fighting evil
• Night Raven fights crime

1930
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• Pluto discovered
• Mysterious poison fog in Belgium kills 27, sickens 300
• The Shadow fights crime, hosts radio program
• * Young Nancy Drew begins to investigate crime

1929
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• Collapse of NY Stock Exchange
• Talkies kill silent films
• St. Valentine's Day Massacre
• Dominic Fortune rats out a crime boss and moves to California

1928
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• Chiang Kai-shek defeats last warlords, takes Peking, founds Chinese republic.
• Al Capone convicted for concealed weapons.
• Penicillin discovered.
• First television broadcast
• Amelia Earhart flies across Atlantic
• Micky Mouse
• Black Widow seeks revenge in LA
• * Logan joins Department K

1927
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• *Frank and Joe Hardy investigate mysteries as boy detectives

1926
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• Agatha Cristie vanishes for several weeks, returns remembering none of her acquaintances.

1925
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• Hitler reorganizes Nazi party, publishes Mein Kampf.
• Scopes Monkey Trial
• Fawcett and crew search for ruined city in Brazil, are lost

1924
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• Hoover director of FBI

1923
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• Beer Hall Putsch fails in Munich
• Martial law in Oklahoma to protect people from KKK
• * 16 year old Charles Xavier graduates Harvard, goes on to Columbia and Oxford

1922
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• Mussolini forms Fascist government
• Carravon opens King Tut's Tomb

1921
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• Hitler's storm troopers terrorize political opponents.
• Mao founds Hunan cell of Chinese Communist party
• KKK violence through the south
• 15k physicians apply for license to prescribe liquor
• More than a dozen ships disappear without a trace
• * Logan is a bootlegger
• Young David Rand goes missing
• Doctor Steven Strange gets in a terrible car accident, ruining his career

1920
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• US Votes against joining League of Nations
• 19th Amendment gives women the vote
• Gandhi emerges as leader of Indian independence
• KDKA first commercial radio station in Pittsburg
• First Miss America crowned in Atlantic City
• John Steele MIA

1919
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• Prohibition passed in US
• First League of Nations meeting in Paris
• Race Riots in Chicago

1918
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• Armistice signed, ending WW1
• Ex-Czar Nicholas and family executed
• World Wide influenza epidemic kills 22 million by 1920
• Union Jack retires
• Phantom Eagle gunned down

1917
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• Mata Hari executed
• Bread rationed in Britain
• February Revolution in Russia, Lenin takes power
• US declares War on Germany
• Phantom Eagle, ace pilot
• John Steele, World War hero
• Freedom's Five warring against the Germans; Phantom Eagle, Crimson Cavalier, Union Jack, Sir Steel, Silver Squire,later Iron Fist
• Brief martian invasion in London

1916
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• British use tanks on Western Front
• Pancho Villa guerilla raid on New Mexico

1915
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• Germans sink Lusitania
• First Zeppelin attack on London
• Birth of a Nation debuts
• Einstein's General Theory of Relativity

1914
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• Archduke Ferdinand of Austria assassinated in Sarajevo, beginning World War 1
• *Logan fights in World War I
• Union Jack fights for England

1912
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• Titanic sinks
• Jung writes Theory of Psychoanalysis

1911
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• First offensive use of aircraft in warfare in Turkish-Italian War
• Chinese Revolution, end of Manchu, Republic proclaimed
• Mona Lisa stolen. Recovered in 1913
• First public encounters with Fu Manchu

1910
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• Revolution in Portugal; king flees to England, Portugal becomes republic
• *Dracula creates Baron Blood
• Tarzan marries Jane, becomes Duke of Greystoke

1909
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• Peary reaches North Pole
• Unidentified object, like a dirigible with a powerful searchlight, seen over Boston in December. The following month, a similar object is seen in Tennessee.
• Multiple sightings of luminous UFOs over England in March and May. These events are dismissed by the press as the work of hoaxers.
• S.S. Waratah, 6,000-ton passenger and cargo liner, lost off South Africa while carrying over 200 passengers and crew. No bodies or debris are ever found.
• Tarzan discovered, comes to France, then America
• Erik, the physically deformed "Phantom of the Opera", kidnaps singer Christine Daaé.

1908
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• Tunguska Event
• Ford produces Model T

1906
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• Typhoid Mary found and jailed
• San Francisco Earthquake kills 700
• Northwest passage navigated

1905
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• Einstein formulates Special Theory of Relativity
• Potemkin mutiny
• IWW formed
• Sun Yat-sen unifies secret societies of China

1904
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• Japanese win war against Russia
• * Events of Peter Pan
• Work on Panama Canal begins

1903
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• Wright brothers fly first powered airplane
• Anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia
• Jack London's Call of the Wild
• Ford Motor Company
• Teddy Bears introduced

1901
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• Mckinley assassinated

1900
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• Boxer Rebellion
• Count Zeppelin launches airship
• Widespread accounts of sea monsters
• Buddy Bolden forms what may be first jazz band
• First Tour de France