From Introduction: To Whom It May Concern: The world we used to occupy, one of royalty and innocence, is long gone. The quaint customs of etiquette and decorum are consigned to the very old who remember a time before the invaders, the time before the War of the Worlds. As chair of Archeology at Channing College, I’ve compiled a list of historic and noteworthy events organized according to the years in which they occurred. I began my list ten years before the Martians landed and ended with the current year. I feel there’s a pattern here, for before the 1898 tragedy, mankind, at least in the civilized Western world, was orderly, the empires and kingdoms still prominent, their presence felt in the more remote and primitive places across the globe. The indigenous peoples, part of the so-called "white man’s burden," began rebelling, and Europe and America entered an age of invention. Then the Martians came and our way of life, at least as we knew it, changed. I hope this timeline puts the world in perspective for you, as it has for me. One day, scholars may wish to add to it, presuming that is, that there will even be a future!