Marvel Film Chronology 965 AD – The frost giants of Jotunheim attempt to conquer Midgard/Earth. Their invasion point in Norway becomes the site of an epic battle as Asgard’s ruler Odin leads an army to repeal the invasion and protect the planet. Odin and his force push the frost giants back to Jotunheim where the AllFather discovers an abandoned frost giant infant, whom he adopts, names Loki and raises as his own alongside his own son Thor. A truce is negotiated between Odin and the frost giant king Laufey. 400-500s AD – Odin leaves the Tesseract on Earth. 1832 – James Howlett is born. 1845 – James Howlett’s father is murdered by Thomas Logan. Howlett discovers his mutant powers and kills Logan, only to learn that Logan is his true father and Logan’s son, Victor Creed, is Howlett’s half-brother. 1861-1975 – James Howlett fights in the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War with his brother Victor Creed. 1918 July 4 – Steve Rogers is born to a young couple in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York City. His father dies of injuries from being mustard gassed during World War One, leaving his mother to raise the boy. 1924 June – Steve Roger’s mother dies of tuberculosis. Young Steve is placed in an Eighth Avenue orphanage. 1930 Sept. – A teenage Steve Rogers meets James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes and the pair quickly become best friends. 1934 – Howard Stark and Abram Erskine briefly meet at an engineering conference in Geneva. February – Johann Schmidt meets the newly appointed German Chancellor Adolph Hitler at the Deutsches Operhaus in Berlin where he tries to convince Hitler of his theory that the Norse myths may actually be true. Hitler is intrigued, but Ernest Kaufmann, head of the Nazi Special Weapons Division (the SA), sees Schmidt as a potential rival and threatens him to not approach Hitler again with his theories. One of Hitler’s inner circle members, Heinrich Himmler, sees some value in what Schmidt has to offer and befriends him. June 30 – The beginning of the three-day “Night of the Long Knives” during which Hitler and the Nazi Party purged Germany of many political enemies including the SA. Himmler allows Schmidt to personally kill Kaufmann. July 1 – Schmidt takes control of the SA’s Weapons Testing Ground at Kummersdorf, an estate near Luckenwalde, south of Berlin, crushing the armed resistance from SA members loyal to Kaufmann. Possessing no strong political convictions but a strong sense of self-preservation, scientist Armin Zola pledges to work for Schmidt. Schmidt stops Zola’s development of an armored exoskeleton battle suit and redirects the scientist’s energies towards biological enhancement. 1935 September 14 – Spurred by rumors that Hitler was to announce draconian anti-Semitic laws, including the revocation of German citizenship for Jews, at the Nazi Party’s annual rally in Nuremberg the next day, biochemist Abraham Erskine attempts to flee Germany with his family. They are stopped at the Swiss boarder by Schmidt who wants Erskine’s work on ways to increase molecular density of cellular fibers through synthetic proteins. In order to ensure Erskine’s cooperation, Schmidt has Erskine’s wife Greta and his children Klaus and Marlene sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Zola is allowed to resume his work on exo-skeleton battle suits and various high-tech weaponry. 1937 April 26 – The Bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. While the Nazis were assisting the forces of Generalissimo Franco, HYDRA uses the battle to test a prototype tank and exo-skeleton battle suit 1940 February – Howard Stark demonstrates a prototype vibranium shield at famed Hollywood restaurant Ciro’s to an assemblage of high ranking military guests. Stark is approached by Col. Chester Phillips of Army Intelligence, who shows him film footage of HYDRA’s weapons testing at the Bombing of Guernica. Phillips extends to Stark an invitation to join the Strategic Science Reserve (SSR), authorized by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who specifically asked for Stark to be recruited. At first, Stark declines but changes his mind after an encounter with a HYDRA assassination team. November – Schmidt tests Erskine’s formula on himself. The formula reacts with Schmidt on a base level, twisting and discoloring his face into a skull-like, red visage. Two days later, Erskine escapes his captivity with the help of the British Secret Intelligence known only as Agent 13. He is informed that his family had died in a typhoid epidemic that swept through the Dachau concentration camp in 1937 and that Schmidt had deliberately withheld that information from him in order to continue to manipulate him. Erskine is recruited by Howard Stark into the SSR. 1941 December 7 – The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor kills thousands of US naval personnel and plunges the country into the conflict that has been slowly sweeping across the globe. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes learn of the attack on Pearl Harbor from a radio report while attending an art class in Times Square. Steve wants to enlist into the armed forces immediately, but Barnes states that the rail thin and sickly Steve would never pass the physical. Barnes spends the next two and a half weeks helping Steve get into better physical condition through boxing training, weight lifting and running. December 24 – Barnes’ training of Steve fails to pay off as he is still classified by Army doctors as “4-F,” Unfit for Service, when he tries to enlist. Barnes is accepted into the Army and the two men part. Steve will make four more attempts to enlist over the next 18 months. 1942 March – Schmidt traces the location of the Tesseract to Tonsberg, Norway and retrieves it, killing its guardian in the process. 1943 -- Erik Lehnsherr is imprisoned by the Nazis in Poland, and discovers his powers. Sebastian Shaw kills Lehnsherr's mother. Charles Xavier meets and befriends Raven Darkholme. June 14 (Flag Day) – Steve Rogers makes his fifth attempt at enlisting, this time at a Paramus, NJ recruiting station. He is again rejected as 4F status. Later in the day he is reunited with Bucky Barnes, now a sergeant who has been assigned to the 107th Infantry, the same unit that Rogers’s father had fought in during World War One. That evening, the pair head out to the World Exposition in Flushing Meadows, NY. Expositions there include Dr. Phineas Horton’s Synthetic Man and Howard Stark demonstrating his flying car prototype which utilizes “gravitic reversion technology.” Steve makes another attempt at enlisting and meets Dr. Erskine of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), who sees Steve’s potential as a candidate for the Super Soldier experiment and certifies Steve 1A, fit for military duty. June 15 – Rogers arrives at Camp Lehigh, New York along with a number of other potential candidates for the SSR’s Super Soldier experiment. Over a period of a week, Col. Phillips and Peggy Carter of the SSR put the candidates through a series of physical tests. Meanwhile, Schmidt and Zola perfect a way to transfer the energy contained in the Tesseract to batteries to power the number of various weapons designed by Zola. June 21 – Following a week of evaluation, Erskine picks Rogers as the subject for the Super Soldier experiment based on his strength of character, knowing that the serum will react to that character. Phillips is not impressed with the choice. June 22 – Steve Rogers undergoes Erskine’s Super Soldier treatment, which leads to a transformation that increased his strength and stamina to the peak of human physical ability. Heinz Kruger, an assassin sent by Schmidt, infiltrates the secret SSR laboratory in Brooklyn where the experiment is being held and kills Erskine. Kruger escapes but is captured by Rogers who is unable to stop Kruger from killing himself rather than be interrogated. Schmidt separates HYDRA from Third Reich control. June 23 – New York newspapers carry story of Rogers’s pursuit of Kruger through Brooklyn, but only identify him as a “Mystery Man.” Rather than risk their only super soldier in combat, the military instead uses Rogers as a public relations tool, having him appear around the country at War Bond rallies and in comic books and a Saturday matinee serial. Wherever he makes an appearance, war bond sales spike. Meanwhile, President Roosevelt orders the SSR to concentrate its efforts on combating HYDRA. Nov 2 - The 107th Division goes up against some of Schmidt’s new weapons and sustains heavy casualties. Nov 3 – Rogers’ War Bond show has been turned into a USO Tour show and sent overseas, where it is met with derision from soldiers who have actually been through months of grueling combat. When Steve finds out about the casualties sustained by the 107th, he plans an impulsive rescue mission and is aided by Carter and Stark. Flying behind enemy lines into Austria, Steve parachutes near one of HYDRA’s bases, sneaks in and frees 400 captured Allied troops including Barnes, Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita, James Montgomery Falsworth, and Jacques Dernier, all of whom will go on to form the core members of the Howling Commandos. Nov 4 – Rogers leads the freed soldiers back with numerous captured examples of HYDRA weapons technology. Howard Stark designs and builds several prototypes of a gadget-laden new shield for Captain America, but Rogers instead takes a simple circular one made out of the world’s only known sample of vibranium. 1944-1945 -- Over the majority of the remainder of the war, Steve leads the Howling Commandos on several raids, taking out numerous HYDRA bases.