10 key events in the Fallout canon timeline

The lore behind the Fallout franchise is, at first glance, completely overwhelming. It stretches for over 1,000 years, revealed through not only games and TV shows but also in accompanying books and media. However, there are some stand-out moments that should be common knowledge.

I’ve trawled through the 1,000 year alternate history of the Fallout universe and narrowed down these significant moments to just 10. It wasn’t easy; the timeline is filled with interesting lore and moments that will leave you questioning everything, but these are the 10 things that stood out to me.

2031: The Beginning of Vault-Tec 

While there is no definitive date when Vault-Tec was founded, this is the first mention of them within the lore. Rather than announcing themselves as a company, they purchased a college close to Morgantown and re-branded it as Vault-Tec university, with many executives going on to graduate from the school. 

2037: Mr. Handy enters the market

In 2037, General Atomics International introduced the first ever Mr. Handy to the consumer market. As with most electronic devices, Mr. Handy had some teething issues and had to undergo an hardware update in 2039 in order to fix an early bug. Despite this hiccup, Mr. Handy robots went on to become wildly popular, eventually going on to use the voice of Sebastian Leslie in his role as Bartholomew Codsworth.

2044: The first Nuka-Cola

John-Caleb Bradberton began developing sickly sweet Nuka Cola in 2042, but it didn’t hit the market until 2044. It quickly went on to become a phenomenon, spawning theme parks and is an immediately recognisable brand within the Fallout universe. Nuka-Cola had 17 ingredients, though it had to change one thanks to the Great Passion Fruit Famine of 2044. An NPC found in Fallout 3’s Wasteland says customers noticed the difference.

2053: New Plague

During the 2050s, the New Plague began to take hold worldwide, with symptoms such as profuse sweating and unexplainable injuries. Easily spread from person to person, this illness would eventually cause death by massive amounts of blood loss. The usual method to contain the disease was by isolation, which America took one step further when it implemented a national quarantine, closing its borders to the rest of the world in 2053. 

2054: Project Safehouse begins 

The rise of the New Plague, coupled with fear over the Euro-Middle Eastern War and use of nuclear weapons, results in the birth of Project Safehouse. This project was designed to create shelters, more commonly known as Vaults, that would be used to house US citizens if a nuclear event or deadly plague occurred. Thanks to advanced building techniques, Vaults quickly began to appear across the country.

2060: Fuel scarcity

In 2060, Europe and the Middle East end their war after oil in the Middle East ceases to exist, rendering the entire conflict ultimately pointless. 

On the other side of the world in America, fuel has been deemed far too precious to be wasted being used for transport, which leads to a massive reduction in traffic and, presumably, a huge reduction in road rage incidents. Electric and fission-powered cars are revealed, but with energy shortages, not many are made or sold. The importance of research into fusion power is confirmed.

2066: The first power armor is deployed into battle

2066 was a pretty big year in terms of Fallout lore. Not only did the US Army begin testing next-generation nuclear weapons, but they ended up at war with China after the latter invaded Alaska, hoping to get its hands on oil reserves. In light of this, the US Army deployed the first power armor into battle with the Chinese in 2067, something which, by all accounts, served them pretty well. 

As a side-effect of the development of power armor, which began in 2065, the first-ever fusion cell was unveiled in 2066, too. It led to fusion power being widely adopted across America, though it was never implemented entirely before the events of the Great War.

2077: The year the bombs fell

For all intents and purposes, this is the year which brings us the setting for all Fallout games and media. On October 23 2077, events of the Sino-American War reached a disastrous turning point when China launched many, many nuclear warheads against the United States, turning the entire world into a wasteland. 

At least, this is the official story. Revelations in the Fallout TV show have led many to believe that rather than the Chinese, it was actually Vault-Tec who detonated the bombs in an effort to sell places within their Vaults. 

Also in 2077, Captain Roger Maxson, who had previously executed a large number of scientists at Mariposa for crimes against humanity, seals up the base and heads out across the wastes with his soldiers and their families. This is known as the Exodus, and commonly referred to as the birth of the Brotherhood of Steel.

2083: Necropolis is founded

Vault 12 was built under Bakersfield, southern California. This Vault was specifically designed to test the effects of radiation and as such, the door was designed never to seal properly. Those who had fled to the Vault soon began to suffer from the effects of ghoulification, and by 2083 a lot of those inside chose to leave. Those who remained went on to found the city of Necropolis. 

Eventually, after Necropolis was destroyed by a mutant army, some of the Ghouls braved the Wastes during the Great Migration and went on to found towns such as Gecko and Broken Hills.

2098: Shady Sands emerges from the Wastes

Known as the first capital of the New California Republic, Shady Sands was one of the largest cities in New California. By 2241, there were over 3,000 residents and Shady Sands was home to the Hall of Congress. The population of Shady Sands quickly exploded, rising to 34,852 by the time it was destroyed.

As revealed in the Fallout TV show, Shady Sands was destroyed by nuclear detonation on the orders of Hank MacLean, Vault-Tec executive and all-round terrible human being, in order to hide the true goings-on inside Vaults 31, 32, and 33. Many survivors of this disaster rehoused themselves in the Griffith Observatory, while others joined the Brotherhood of Steel.