A More Perfect Union

June. 1775 - As one of his first Acts as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington dispatches Benjamin Franklin with a translator to meet with the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy. At the final meeting Franklin reminded Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) of the power the five nations had when united as a single confederacy by adding a 14th arrow to a bundle of 13 the envoys had brought with them, asking that he try and break the bundle. With Thayendanegea's support, the Iroquois agreed to side with the Colonies against Great Britain, fielding around 1,500 men to the American cause.

Dec. 1775 - Battle of Quebec ends in a decisive American victory after General Arnold takes the city with support of the Iroquois under the command of Colonel Joseph Louis Cook, (Akiatonharónkwen). During the battle, a group of experienced irregular fighters commanded by Brant destroy the British powder stores behind the city. Arnold is so impressed by Brant's men that he requests that Congress commission them as the First Ranger Regiment of the Continental Army.

Aug - 1776 - The British are ambushed by Brant's Rangers at Long Island and routed by General Washington. General Howe is captured by the rangers in what is the first major victory for General Washington during the war. Washington, impressed by the tactics of the Rangers, asks that they assist in the training of the Continental Army's regular forces, and reaffirms his commitment to honoring their status as a sovereign State once the war is done.

Oct. 1776 - Most of the Cherokee nation refuse to join the British in the Revolution, seeing the treatment of the Iroquois by the Americans.

Sept. 1777 - General Clinton takes the remaining troops from the New York campaign to Philadelphia. General Washington orders the Rangers to stage an asymmetric campaign against the British and reduce their capacity to fight as they try to hold the city.

Dec. 1777 - Col. Brant begins training new Ranger recruits at Valley Forge along side the Continental Army, while the Iroquois donate cold weather boots and blankets to the Continental Army.

Feb. 1779 - Col. Brant joins Maj. General John Sullivan on an expedition to destroy or capture British Loyalist weapons cashes and key food supplies, handing those captured over to Iroquois or neighboring revolutionary friendly settlers.

Feb. 1780 - General Clinton's reinforcements are repelled in South Carolina by a joint assault by the Continental Army and the French Fleet. End of major fighting in North America.

Aug. 1780 - General Cornwallis surrenders at Camden, South Carolina. Ending hostilities in North America.

June 1783 - The Treaty of Paris is signed, formally recognizing American claims to former British territory East of the Mississippi, including the Quebec Province. With pressure from General Washington, New York's legislature agrees to honor the provision in the treaty respecting the formal boundary of the Iroquois Confederacy. Loyalists to the Crown in the new United States of America are expelled from the new country. Northern loyalists are forced to resettle in the Bahamas or British West Indies. This transfer of close to half a million people is hotly opposed by the Bahamas existing population and becomes a major issue of contention between the islands and the Crown. A minority of Northern Loyalists attempt to settle in Rupert's Land, which is directly controlled by the Hudson Bay Company.

Sept. 1786 - Shays rebellion is put down after a force of former Rangers and Iroquois militiamen ride from New York to Springfield to assist Gen. Lincoln.

Aug. 1787 - Gen. Cook and a group of delegates from the then-unrecognized state of Iroquois join the convention in Philadelphia after members of the Massachusetts delegation and George Washington insist that they be counted as a thanks for coming to the relief of their state.

Sept. 1787 - Gen. Cook makes an impassioned case for the expressed banning of slavery in the Constitution. While the trade was beginning to decline in Southern States, there was a genuine fear that outright abolition would break the young country. The motion passed, but included a proviso that slave owners would be financially compensated, and those freed slaves be given 20 acres of land in the Yazoo lands ceded from Georgia.

March 1789 - Only five states remain to ratify the Constitution, North Carolina, Rhode Island, the Vermont Republic, the Iroquois Confederacy, and Nova Scotia. Of the final states, Nova Scotia and the Iroquois are the most hesitant to formally join the Union, though lobbying by the Federalists, Col. Brant, and General Cook seems to be eroding opposition. The Hudson Bay Company's territory remains a touchy subject for American and British relations, as it was not considered part of Canada during the Treaty of Paris negotiations and is officially an unincorporated territory belonging to a private company.

1803: The Napoleonic Wars begin. Napoleon sells Louisiana to the United States to finance the war effort in Europe. The sale of Louisiana also serves as a conclusion of the Quasi-War which had grown more tense as the US had continued to smuggle freed slaves from Haiti into West Florida where they served as a source of cheap immigrant labor in the cotton and sugar industries. This practice ended upon the US acquisition of Louisiana.

1812: After repeated impressment of American sailors into British service, and British Hudson Bay Company mercenaries raiding Mohawk-American settlers in Canada and Quebec, the United States invades Rupert's Land and the British West Indies on President Hamilton's order, attacking ports and trade posts across their territory.

1813: British Loyalists in the Bahamas organize an invasion of Georgia and West Florida, in the hope of taking back their homes. Gen. Andrew Jackson is dispatched to dislodge the Tories from the South as the fighting in Rupert's Land begins to wind down.

1814: Treaty of Ghent - Britain gives up its claims to Rupert's Land, and cedes the Bahamas to the United States. The Tories living in the Bahamas are once again forced to leave their homes, this time for the Cape Colony in Africa or Guyana.

1816: Seminole Wars - President Hamilton orders the delivery of arms and Native American fighters to support Spanish Florida's Seminoles in their war for independence against Spain. Jackson eventually joins the fighting directly and becomes a hero to the Seminoles.

1822: Florida votes to cede itself to the United States. Andrew Jackson becomes the territory's first Governor.

1835: Start of the Mexican-American War - American settlers in Texas carry out an uprising against Mexico in Texas. Seeking to secure the Port of Louisiana and defeat their main rival in America, the US sends in the Cavalry to support their settlers in Texas.

1837: Mexico agrees to American demands over Texas before the US can stage an invasion of Veracruz. During negotiations Mexico insists on limiting the Texas cession to just the recognized Mexican territory itself, prompting President Clay to threaten an invasion of Alta California, thus pushing the Mexicans to recognizing American claims to Texas in its entirety.

1846: British and American settlers move into the Oregon country in droves once gold is discovered in Fraser Canyon. Fighting breaks out between the settlers on multiple occasions and British and American ships fire on each-other at one point. With American settlers outnumbering British traders 10 to 1, Britain agrees to cede the Oregon Country in exchange to an agreement by the US to respect the sovereignty of the British West Indies and Jamaica.

1856: The Klondike War: American prospectors near the border with Russian-Alaska discover Gold near the Klondike river. American prospectors in the Oregon Territory and former Rupert's Land rush into Russian Alaska to claim their gold. Russian duties on private merchant ships leaving Anchorage lead to the Americans taking the port after capturing the Russian Army's supply of firearms. The Russian navy is sent in but American naval forces stationed in the Puget Sound successfully repel them. President Carson offers to buy Alaska from the Russians to end hostilities, which Emperor Alexander II accepts.

1860: Second American Revolution: With the Southern States facing economic ruin from the Panic of 1857, poor farmers, inspired by the writings of Marx and Mackenzie, stage an armed uprising over the corrupt governments of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and West Florida. President Lee, already facing a close election orders the US Army to put down a mob of protesters in Virginia that were nearing Washington DC. However, this order is only given right after the papers report that the protesters have taken Lee's family home, in Arlington. Accusations of corruption spread like wildfire and Canadian governor and Republican Party nominee John MacDonald is elected in a landslide.

1861: Beginning of MacDonald's "Reconstruction" program to industrialize and develop large swaths of the United States that had been largely excluded from the benefits of Industrialization. New roads and bridges are built, along with a transcontinental rail-network linking Seattle and the West to the rest of the United States.

1863: Passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments granting voting rights to all Americans and giving the Federal Government the power to levy an estate tax, functionally ending the era of landowners dominating the American economy.

1877: President Sherman reinforces the Gold Standard to reduce inflation rates that had been hurting farmers and businessmen during the Long Depression. Many of the economic reforms of Reconstruction and the Age of Jackson are curtailed or reversed entirely.

1898: Cuban Revolution: Cuban Republicans rise up against Spain in a war for independence. The United States supplies arms to the Cubans, and eventually sends the US navy to assist the Cuban revolutionaries, engaging the Spanish directly to enforce the Hamilton doctrine.

1910: California Revolution: Mexican settlers in California declare independence from the Mexican Empire, forming the Republic of California. The sparsely populated territory is little more than a confederacy of several coastal cities and farming towns in the Great Central Valley.

--1916-1946: Second 30 Years War--

1916-1919: First China War: War breaks out between German, French, and British backed warlords in China. Germany attempts to sever Anglo-French supply lines via submarine attacks on French and British ports, and an invasion of France. The war threatens to consume most of Europe before a hasty armistice is drafted to partition China among the major sphere's of influence.

1918-1921: Anglo-Ottoman War: British and Ottoman forces clash over Egypt after the Ottomans close the Suez Canal to French and British traffic to assist their German allies. The war ends after Britain's conquest of Egypt and the successful Hashemite Revolution.

1923-1928: Hapsburg War of Succession. Austria-Hungary collapses into civil war. Britain and France send troops to support Balkan nationalist groups and counter German attempts to hold its alliance in the Balkans. The war ends after Russia invades Hungary in a quasi alliance with Germany.

1931 - Panic of 1931: The US Stock Market crashes launching a worldwide economic Depression. The Republicans take back the White House from the Conservatives the first time in 16 years thanks to Quebec Governor Mackenzie King. King's "New Deal" dramatically expanded the power of the Federal Government, establishing federal retirement programs, civil works projects, and increased government control of the economy.

1938-1946: The Great War - After years of small skirmishes Germany invades France through the Low Countries in 1938 plunging the continent into war. The US remains out of the conflict until Japan attacks the US naval position in Anchorage in 1942 before attacking the US protectorates of Hawaii and the Philippines. Britain and France hold the Germans at the Somme while the Russians struggle to redeploy troops from the Pacific. The balance doesn't shift until after the US is able to reinforce British and French troops with their own forces in Europe, but drags on for another 3 years. In the Pacific Japan surrenders only after a joint American, Californian, and Russian invasion of the Home Islands in 1944, while in Europe the German Empire doesn't relent until after the American atomic bombing of Hamburg and Stuttgart in 1946. Germany promptly surrenders and the Entente occupies the country while the Russians take Poland. The core of the Japanese Empire is divided with the Americans controlling the bulk of the Home Islands, Taiwan and Ryukyu and the Russians controlling Hokkaido, the Kurils, Manchuria, and Korea.

--1946-1991: Russo-American Cold War--

1949: The Russian State tests its first Atomic bomb. An arms race between Russia and America begins in Earnest. US nuclear tests are largely confined to the far north of the country and the Pacific.

1954: Decolonization of China ends after France relinquishes control of Canton and Indochina.

1958: Russia launches its first satellite into orbit thanks to help from Japanese scientists captured at the end of the Great War. The US follows suit a few weeks later thanks to the efforts between its own collection of captured Japanese scientists.

1963: The Chinese Civil War ends with the proclamation of the restoration of the Chinese Empire. The fall of China to fascism and China joining the Eurasian Bloc is an international embarrassment to the United States.

1971: Completion of the US Space Station Olympus, the Space Race turns a corner as America beats Russia to the creation of a functioning space station. The Russian Platform Almaz, is expected to be completed in late 1972.

1975: President McCarthy travels to China, exploiting the Sino-Russian split and bringing China into the US alliance system.

1991: Facing an overextended military and economic decline, the Russian State organizes elections and agrees to withdraw from Poland, prompting a military coup and civil war.

1993: Japanese Reunification.

1995: Shasta Referendum: The mostly English speaking Californian state of Shasta narrowly votes to remain in California.