Why did I choose 1885 for my Epic Story Of Lost World Adventure Awesomeness?
Well, there was a lot of cool stuff going on.
Such as, the roller coaster was patented. The Irish tried to blow up the Tower of London with dynamite. John Babbacombe Lee was hung three times and didn’t die. (The English declared it ‘Divine Intervention’, and eventually released him. This is like Game of Thrones ‘Trial by Combat’… except it was more like ‘Trial by Hangin”) The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York and the Rabies Vaccine is a success. (Yay!)
None of that matters a single bit in regards to the book. But it’s neat to know.
BUT, the BONE WARS was nearing an end. That was when a pair of rival archeologists tried to destroy each other while discovering new species of dinosaurs in the American West. Eventually they ruined each other socially and financially. It’s kind of a shame they didn’t just resort to a duel though… Anyways. This is just too awesome of a historical event to not include, and some of the ground work is already laid in the first book.
There was also the Temperance Movement to ‘Ban All Fun Activities by Men’…
But most importantly, 1885 also pushed us into the wonderful world of smokeless gun powder and metallic cartridges while black powder was still being used to good effect. John Moses Browning was about to reveal his famous 1886 Winchester, and one of his earliest inventions, the 1885 High Wall had just been put into production.
(Sadly, we’re still over a decade away from the pump action Winchester Model 1897 Shotgun that would eventually be used in every military conflict up to Vietnam. Could you imagine how cool one of these would be against apes and dinosaurs? -stab- KABOOM!)
Man… the things I want to write about…
Anyways…
Did I mention that the military was still using single shot Springfields? (Sucks to be you guys when faced with an army of numerically, and physically, superior apes with a prowess for soaking up bullets. That makes for great battle scenes.)
There were also a lot of famous characters still alive, or who’d recently deceased.
Wyatt Earp was 37 years old. The shoot out at the OK corral took place four years prior. Doc Holliday was still alive and up to no good in his flamboyant style. Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, and Theodore Roosevelt were all running around at the same time as the villainous likes of John Wesley Hardin, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sitting Bull, and Jeremiah Johnson were this side of the dirt.
1885 was a heckuva year to be alive.
Oh, and the very first edition of ‘Good Housekeeping’ was published. Which is probably why the Temperance Movement took off…
Gunpowder and Ink! 