The timeline has changed for the Old West.
Alternate History of the Weird West
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Text in red denotes the altered history of the Weird West. Text in strikethrough denotes how the main timeline has been altered.
1860
The Pony Express begins its first run from St. Joseph, MO, United States, to Sacramento, CA.
Abraham Lincoln defeats John C. Breckenridge to become the 16th President of the United States.
South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.
1861
More Southern states secede from the North and form the Confederate States of America.
Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.
Confederate forces fire upon Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The Civil War begins.
The Confederate Army surprisingly wins the (First) Battle of Bull Run.
1862
Jefferson Davis is inaugurated in Richmond, VA, as president of the Confederate States.
The Confederate Army wins the (Second) Battle of Bull Run.
Dakota War of 1862: Indian warriors decide to attack the settlement of New Ulm, killing settlers.
The Union Army wins at Antietam (Creek), MD, in the bloodiest single day in U.S. history.
Dr. Richard Gatling patents the machine gun.
1863
Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, outlawing slavery.
The Union Army wins the Battle of Gettysburg.
The Battle of Gettysburg ends as a stalemate, as dead soldiers rise and continue to fight.
New York City draft riots: 3 days of violent rioting, the worst in U.S. history with around 120 killed.
West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.
The Confederacy assigns the Texas Rangers to investigate paranormal events.
1864
President Lincoln promotes General Ulysses S. Grant to command the Union Army.
Montana Territory is organized out of parts of Washington Territory and Dakota Territory.
Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state.
Abraham Lincoln is reelected over George B. McClellan for his 2nd term as president.
1865
The Union establishes The Agency (formerly the Pinkerton Detective Agency) to investigate paranormal events.
President Lincoln is assassinated. Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President of the United States.
The Confederacy surrenders at Appomattox Court House, VA.
Union General Gordon Granger lands at Galveston, TX, and informs the people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation (an event celebrated in modern times each year as Juneteenth).
1866
Brigham Young proclaims Utah the Independent Nation of Deseret.
Red Cloud's War begins as an armed conflict between an alliance of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho peoples against the United States and the Crow Nation that takes place in the Wyoming and Montana territories from 1866 to 1868.
The Reno Gang commits the first train robbery in the United States, taking a total of $13,000.
1867
Nebraska is admitted as the 37th U.S. state.
Alaska is purchased for $7.2 million from Russia, about 2 cent/acre, by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward. The news media call this "Seward's Folly."
Christopher Scholes invents the first practical and modern typewriter.
1868
Laramie, WY is established.
Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horatio Seymour to become the 18th President of the United States.
The Great Quake cracks California open and creates the Great Maze. Ghost rock is first discovered.
1869
President Grant promotes General George G. Meade to command the Union Army.
World's first rodeo held in Deer Trail, CO.
Outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.
The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, one of the first such laws in the world.
1870
Women gain the right to vote in Utah Territory.
Dr. Darius Hellstromme arrives in Deseret.
Congress creates federal holidays (New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day), initially applicable only to federal employees.
United States Department of Justice is established.
1871
Union Army wins at the Battle of Washington D.C.
The Confederacy surrenders at Appomattox Court House, VA.
The first supposedly Major League Baseball game is played.
The Great Rail Wars begin.
The Great Chicago Fire kills 300 people, causing over $200 million in damage.
1872
Dodge City, KS is established.
J.S. Risdon patents the metal windmill.
The Territorial Rangers are formed, based on Texas Rangers, and assigned to United States territories.
Ulysses S. Grant is reelected over Horace Greeley for his 2nd term as president.
1873
The New York stock market crash triggering the Panic of 1873.
P.T. Barnum's circus, The Greatest Show on Earth, debuts in New York City.
Coors Brewing Company begins making beer in Golden, CO.
1874
Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets. The price is $13.50 per dozen.
Inventor Joseph Glidden patents barbed wire.
The Coyote Confederation is formed.
1875
Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.
Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, UT.
Conoco established as the Continental Oil and Transportation Company.
1876
Deadwood Treaty signed.
Alexander Graham Bell successfully makes the first ever telephone call to his partner, Thomas Watson.
General George Custer suffers defeat against Sioux warriors at the Battle of Little Bighorn (currently Montana).
Free and Holy City of Lost Angels, CA is established.
Nicolaus August Otto invents the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine.
Rutherford B. Hayes defeats Samuel J. Tilden to become the 19th President of the United States.
1877
Thomas Edison invents the cylinder phonograph or tin foil phonograph. It inscribed audio to tinfoil wrapped along a cardboard cylinder for subsequent playback. Alexander Graham Bell added wax to Edison’s phonograph design in order to record waves of sound. The result was referred to as the graphophone.
Eadweard Muybridge invents the first moving pictures.
Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill dies the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.
1878
The Gunfight at Blazer's Mill occurs in Lincoln County, NM.
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was the first person to invent a practical and longer lasting electric lightbulb.
Yellow fever epidemic begins in New Orleans, eventually killing 4,500 people.
1879
In Utica, NY, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores.
Tombstone, AZ is established.
Fire blazes through Deadwood, SD destroying 300 buildings with damages at $3 million.
1880
Wabash, IN becomes the first electrically lighted city in the world.
The War of the Triads leads to bloodshed amongst United States Asian communities.
The first blizzard mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter sweeps over the prairie in Dakota Territory.
James A. Garfield defeats Winfield Scott Hancock to become the 20th President of the United States.
1881
The Great Summoning empowers Native Americans to form the Sioux Nations.
President Garfield is assassinated. Chester A. Arthur becomes the 21st President of the United States.
The Earp family wins the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, AZ.
1882
The Standard Oil Trust (monopoly) is secretly created to control multiple corporations set up by John D. Rockefeller and his associates.
Thomas Edison starts the U.S.'s first commercial electrical power plant, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan.
Jesse James is killed by fellow outlaw Robert Ford in his home at St. Joseph, Missouri for reward.
1883
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show debuts In Omaha, NE.
U.S. and Canadian railroads institute standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
Cheyenne, WY becomes the first town in the west to install electric lights.
1884
William Phoenix digs a 66.6-pound ghost rock nugget from the Uinta foothills of western Wyoming nicknamed the Headstone Nugget.
The PCs arrive at the Eighth of a Bar Ranch.