1922 (TU)

May

• May 1: Doctor Sir Calvin Hammersmith invites leading names in the scientific and political fields to witness the demonstration of his "Telluric Engine" at Atlas Cross, his London mansion, on July 21st.
• May 28: Jake "Danger Ace" Stefokowski leads the Air Circus in battling Dr. Zorbo's Death Balloons over Kansas City.

• Summer: Whitley Styles begins working with his mathematician acquaintance David Aramissian, investigating a phenomenon later attributed to the Inquiry.

July

• July 21: The Hammersmith Incident. Doctor Sir Calvin Hammersmith demonstrates his Telluric Engine. The Engine is theoretically capable of tapping "Z-waves," providing a limitless power source. On activation, however, the Engine explodes, killing nearly all present. Survivors, including Jackson Harley (Dr Hammersmith's butler), Michael Donighal (a friend of fellow attendee Maxwell Anderson Mercer) and Benjamin Franklin Dixon (Dr Hammersmith's lab assistant), find themselves "Inspired" by the release of telluric energy.
• July 21: Max Mercer is launched on his first trip through time.
• In the wake of the Hammersmith Incident, physicist P.A.M. Dirac postulates the existence of zero-point energy.

September

• September 23: The New York Times runs an article on Professor Irving Klass' "neocaloric fluid".

October

• October 10: Roland Broomfield, an Irregular of the International Detective Agency, sends a memo to the Old Man expressing the intent to track down the so-called "King of the World."
• October 11: The Old Man sends a memo to Roland Broomfield advising caution in pursuit of the King of the World, to be supplemented by regular reports.
• October 16: In the late hours of the night, the body of Roland Broomfield is recovered from the Thames, his pockets full of bricks but no sign of violence on his person.

December

• Whitley Styles records in his journal that Michael Donighal has called, asking if Whit has had any better luck finding Max Mercer (whom neither of them has seen since the Hammersmith Incident). Whit resolves to catch the next boat to London: "Mrs. Austin will be disappointed, but her jewels can wait."