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-150,000 BP. The first incident of violence. An early modern human (H. sapiens sapiens) returns home early from the hunt due to bad weather and finds his brother making fresh with his wife. Rather than bludgeon the man, he instead compares his sibling’s penis to a mammoth’s: relatively small, furry, and smelling like a dead whale. Unprepared for this novel assault, the surprised adulterer can only attempt to retaliate with a crude form of ‘yo mama,’ and is laughed out of the clan for his foolish self-burn.
-140,000 BP. The first full-scale war breaks out. All twenty combatants suffer serious boo-boos and ouchies, and the defeating general is noogied alive. A rematch is scheduled, but is called off on account of mammoths.
-15,000 BP. An over-long game of “mammoth-fur-overcoat’s-on-fire, NOW IT’S OUT” during the crossing of the Bering land bridge leads to the first attempted homicide in the Americas.
-334 BC. Alexander the Great launches the beginning of one of the most successful military campaigns ever to exist in history and goes on to conquer a vast empire, all of which falls apart within a few years of his death. This is considered worthy of emulation and he is admired widely for millennia.
-266 BC. Filled with boldness at their successful use of flaming pigs to deter invasion by elephants, the people of the Greek city of Megara attempt to outfit pigs with shield, spear, and armour. It ends poorly for them, but provides the invading army with easy access to delicious bacon.
-0 AD. An attempted pranking of a troublesome holy man by leaving him tied to a big stick overnight gets a little out of control.
-100 AD. With an unusual lack of major enemies and a low point of internal strife, citizens of the Roman Empire develop the game of ‘stop hitting yourself’ to satiate their boredom.
-500-ish AD. King Arthur’s best friend runs off with his wife, explaining his actions with the first use of ‘bros before hos.’ This is the first and far from last complete and total failure of this defence.
-700 AD. Hundreds of churches and monasteries in the British Isles are burned and pillaged by the Norsemen with the use of only a single knock-knock joke for entry, usually the same one over and over. According to archaeological data, it wasn’t a particularly good one, even in the original Old Norse.
-1095 AD. The crusades are officially declared to be ‘on’ after the Turks respond to Pope Urban II’s calls for pious violence with “umad?”
-1255 AD. Mansa Ali expands the Mali Empire, using a mixture of conquest and surprise bouts of truth-or-dare to force his neighbours to give him all their land or be labelled wussies.
-1277 AD. In an abrupt end to a decently long and obscenely successful life of mass murder, Genghis Khan dies in a riding accident after his youngest son Tolui saws the left leg off his horse as a prank.
-1281 AD. The Divine Wind destroys Mongol attempts at invading China. Its existence is credited to the grace of the gods and the secret construction of largest whoopee cushion ever made.
-1400 AD and so on. Large quantities of European noblemen wear gigantic amounts of metal all over themselves, and are greatly surprised and annoyed to learn that projectile weaponry has already been developed, often at a range of six hundred feet and straight through their eyeballs.
-1453 AD. The Hundred Years’ War ends after one hundred and sixteen years, and is widely admired for having given the French and English time to really find out who they were and get a grip on life and all that deep stuff, and what it really MEANT, man. The answer, naturally, was killing foreigners.
-1493 AD. Columbus sails back to Spain and tattles on the Indians for having nice stuff and hiding when he demanded they share. Europe in general agrees that such naughty behaviour merits a thorough genocide and time-out.
-1520 AD. Montezuma bets his life and country that he’s a bigger asshole than Hernan Cortes. Cortes wins the bet before he gets the joke, which pretty much sets the tone for Spanish relations in the New World from there.
-1776 AD. General George Washington pinky swears to the Hessians that he will not cross the Delaware on December 24th. Though it was once commonly held by American historians that he was crossing the pinky of his other hand behind his back at the time, this is now considered to be a myth.
-1812 AD. The British and the Americans take turns burning down each other’s landmarks, declare victory, and go home. No, really.
-1865 AD. In a deplorable display, American president Abraham Lincoln is assassinated without so much as a twenty-second head start, let alone the opportunity to call time-out.
-1876 AD. George Armstrong Custer tries to call safety at Little Big Horn but is overruled by Crazy Horse, who claims that they ‘called it’ as home base first. Custer disagrees loudly and is bludgeoned, in that order.
-1877 AD. The Bone Wars of the American west begin between rival paleontologists Cope and Marsh, showing once again that the one thing an upper-class pedantic twit can’t stand is another guy just like him.
-1914 AD. The Christmas truce occurs and lasts for another 4 years after all the soldiers involved realize how much nicer it is than getting shot. After a lot of arguing, the governments involved agree to lie to the historians to prevent embarrassment and settle the victor with a coin flip. Germany argues that Britain rigged the toss, Britain cites losers-weepers doctrine, and the ensuring bitterness sets the stage for the next go-round.
-1915 AD. The tank is conceptualized, named, and constructed as part of an elaborate practical joke.
-1940 AD. The first battle won by a tank driving backwards. Simultaneously, the first battle won as a result of drinking and driving. Also the last. Formal records deleted so as to prevent copycats.
-1945 AD. Humans become ‘Death, the destroyer of a few square miles in New Mexico.’ Several additional, more heavily populated square miles follow. It is estimated that at some point humanity will work its way up to ‘world,’ and in far future times, if the fates sing right, ‘worlds’ may be attainable.
-2001 AD. An attempted punk’d-ing in New York goes horribly wrong.
-2003 AD. Iraq is invaded by the United States of America for being in the wrong place at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons, something something, something or other, yadda yadda and so on.
-2109 AD. An anonymous world leader finally discovers and uses the perfect ‘yo mama’ joke.
-2109 plus five minutes or so AD. Open nuclear warfare.
-6381 AD. Junior xeno-archaeologist Qdu372 uses an extremely rare specimen of intact human skull as a hand puppet and is punched in the skepplem by his associate, senior xeno-archaeologist TBI9.