1943
- July 1 - Joe Lomax is born to John and Laura Lomax in New York City, the second of his parents' four children.
1952
- The NSA is formed.
1954
- Martin Lynch is born in Chicago to William and Martha Lynch.
1955
- October 17 - Art Jeffries is born in Chicago; the first of his parents' only two children. (Mercury Rising: Countdown)
- Jenny Simmons, later Jenny Lynch, is born to George and Edwina Simmons in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
- Jack Nichols is born to Jason and Laura Nichols in Columbus, Ohio.
1960
- July 18 - Tommy Jordan is born in Springfield, Illinois; the first of three children in his family. (S3 - Insanity's End)
1966
- June 11 - Stacey Siebring is born in Des Moines, Iowa; her parents' first child. (Mercury Rising, Mercury Rising: Shockwave)
1967
- July 8 - Art Jeffries, Jr., father of twelve year-old Art Jeffries III, is killed in a car accident near Midway Airport in Chicago while on the way to meet young Art's uncle, Dave Jeffries, who was returning from a tour of duty in West Germany. Art, Jr.'s wife and young Art's mother Amanda Jeffries is put into a coma for over thirty years as a result. (S1 - Death Doesn't Take a Holiday)
1971
- April 17 - The IBM Building in Chicago begins construction at 330 North Wabash.
1973
- The IBM Building in Chicago is completed.
1981
- US President Ronald Reagan signs into law the current official directive of the NSA. It states that the agency is only to conduct foreign operations using its resources, and to leave domestic matters to the FBI. Any breach of this directive, especially ones like Nicholas Kudrow and Robert Donaldson's places the NSA into a seriously compromising position with the government.
1982
- March 13 - Peter Burrell is presumed dead in Beirut, while serving with US Special Forces. (Mercury Rising)
1985
- May 22 - Peter Lynch is born at Northwestern Memorial at 7:39 AM EDT. (S1 - Long Lost)
- Roy McOwen joins the Chicago Sun-Times.
1989
- March 12 - Simon Lynch is born at 6:07 AM at Concordia General as Martin and Jenny Lynch's last child. (S1 - The Fall)
1990
- March 12 - On Simon Lynch's first birthday, he, Martin, Jenny, and Peter move from 4948 North Natchez Avenue to 2144 West 23rd Street. (S1 - The "L" Plan, Part 2)
1992
- August 29 - Peter Lynch, in an atypical childhood fashion and wanting to 'see the world', leaves his home, only seven years old at the time. (S1 - Long Lost; Regrets)
1993
- August 11 - The Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle is completed amongst much fanfare, retaining Chicago's title of containing the tallest building in the world, surpassing the Sears Tower in height by over 550 feet (not counting antennas/masts), and the future Petronas Towers by nearly 600 feet.
1995
1996
- July 8 - Construction begins on 7 South Dearborn in Chicago, Illinois. (S3 - Whirlwind)
1997
1998
- March 21 - An earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale occurs in Iran, the shockwaves from which rupture major oil fields in Kuwait and northeastern Saudi Arabia. (Mercury Rising: 9/11)
- April 9 - An F5 tornado passes near Nashville, Tennessee, killing over a hundred and wounding many others. (S3 - Whirlwind)
- May 3 - Yet another earthquake occurs in Iran, this one magnitude 6.9. The shockwaves only cause minor damage throughout the country, killing few. (S6 - Hierarchy)
- May 30 - German Mob boss Karl Decker is captured by the FBI after a shootout at his stronghold in the Des Moines outskirts, resulting in the deaths of all his men except Jason Kreuger, who escapes and plans revenge. The FBI suffers only three casualties in the shootout, out of over thirty men. (Mercury Rising: Occupation)
- June 5 to 12 - Nine year-old Simon Lynch deciphers the original MERCURY code, and is targeted by NSA's Nicholas Kudrow, but is shielded from Kudrow's efforts by Chicago FBI's Art Jeffries, after his parents, Martin and Jenny Lynch, were murdered by Kudrow's second and top hit-man, Peter Burrell. The conflict came to head, with Dean Crandell and Leo Pedranski meeting their fates at the hands of Burrell, but slowly begining what would turn the tables on Kudrow. The resolution finally came in the form of a confrontation atop the city's IBM Building, in which Kudrow and Burrell were killed by Jeffries and an FBI SWAT team led by Tommy Jordan. These events initiated The Conflict. (Mercury Rising)
1999
- February 28 - A 5.1 earthquake strikes Chicago at 11:20 AM, and the 1999 Chicago blackout occurs at 6:12 PM when Simon Lynch accidentally shuts down the city power grid. (S1 - Nerd or Hacker?)
- March 4 - John Burrell, Will Patterson, and Andrew Ridd abduct Simon Lynch and utilize a former Eastwind Airlines 727-cargo jet to flee Midway Airport. (S1 - Terror in the Sky)
- March 5 - Scott and Katharine Smith are killed in a bombing perpetrated by Andrew Ridd and Will Patterson of Zero Section that destroys the Chicago Span of the Lake Michigan Overpass, forcing Simon Lynch into contemplating suicide. (S1 - Death Doesn't Take a Holiday)
2000
- July 26 - Construction of 7 South Dearborn is completed when workers finish the installation of the 433 foot-high broadcast antenna on the roof. (S3 - Whirlwind)
- July 29 - The US Army's research division makes a major breakthrough in nanotechnology when they successfully use nanites to cure a medical patient of cancer.
- August 14 - Miko Ritan is born to Mark and Carol Ritan in Sturgis, South Dakota. (Mercury Rising: 2012)
- August 18 - An F-4 tornado touches down in the Chicago suburb of Cicero at the intersection of W. Roosevelt Road and S. Oakley Blvd at 11:21 p.m, and travels almost to downtown before dissipating. Another tornado, a weaker F-2, touches down in the West Side on W. Lake Street over the Kennedy Expressway. The final toll amounts to over two-hundred million dollars and 102 dead.
(S3 - Whirlwind)
2001
2002
- October 6 - A magnitude 7.0+ earthquake swarm occurs in the Long Valley Caldera of Eastern California, a signal of events to come. (S6 - Fires of Death, Part 1)
- October 8 - The USGS detects a 4.7 foot uplift of the Long Valley Caldera floor, and raises the Long Valley alert level to yellow. (S6 - Fires of Death, Part 1)
- October 9 - USGS announces the caldera uplift in Long Valley has reached 9.9 feet, and raises the alert level first to orange, then red after several hydrothermal eruptions occur within the caldera and along the Mono-Inyo Volcanic Chain. Evacuations of the Inyo National Park begin. (S6 - Fires of Death, Part 1)
- October 10 - The main evacuation of Inyo National Park is complete, while the caldera uplift in Long Valley reaches 12.4 feet, and several large fissures crisscross the caldera floor around 9:09 AM, bisecting both US HWY 395 and the local airport. (S6 - Fires of Death, Part 1)
- October 11 - The Long Valley Caldera erupts. (S6 - Fires of Death, Part 1, Fires of Death, Part 2)
2079
- May 2 to 30 - Discovery is made of non-human skeletal remains in the Tharsis Region of Mars, and the human colony of McAuliffe City is evacuated when a deadly, unknown virus that mutates humans into zombie-like creatures spreads after the remains are discovered. (Mercury Rising: The Martian Paradox)