Timeline of History vs. Timeline of Development of Duke Nukem Forever

Since Duke Nukem Forever was first announced in April of 1997, a lot has changed in the world. Follow along a ride through history as the world moves forward at breakneck speed while the developers at 3D Realms, in their slowed down land of fantasy, take their dear sweet time in delivering the Duke Nukem goodness.

April 28, 1997: 3D Realms announces the development of Duke Nukem Forever

May 2 1997: Tony Blair assumes power as Prime Minister of the UK.

May 11 1997: Deep Blue beats Gary Kasparov in the final rematch, making the first time a computer has bested a grand champion.

June 2 1997: Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings.

June 7 1997: The Detroit Red Wings win their first Stanley Cup in 42 years.

June 11 1997: The British House of Common passes a law banning all handguns.

June 12 1997: The US Treasury announces a newly designed $50 bill.

June 13 1997: The Chicago Bulls win their 5th NBA Championship.

June 25 1997: Jacques Cousteau dies.

June 30 1997: First Harry Potter book published.

July 1997: Duke Nukem Forever screenshots published in PC Gamer magazine, with the release date of mid-1998

July 1 1997: The UK hands over sovereignty of Hong Kong to China.

July 4 1997: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder lands on Mars.

July 17 1997: The Woolworth Co. closes after 117 years in business.

August 6 1997: Microsoft buys $150 million shares in the financially troubled Apple.

Princess Dead… like those damn Duke Nukem aliens

August 31 1997: Princess Di is involved in a car crash in Paris, pronounced dead.

September 5 1997: Athens, Greece is chosen as the site of the 2004 Summer Olympics.

September 5 1997: Mother Theresa dies of heart failure in India.

September 11 1997: Scotland votes to create its own Parliment after 290 years of union with England.

October 15 1997: Andy Green sets the first supersonic land speed record.

October 29 1997: Anton LeVey, founder of the Church of Satan passes away.

October 30 1997: Au pair Louise Woodward is found guilty in the baby-shaking death of Matthew Eappon.

November 9 1997: BBC News 24 is launched.

November 12 1997: Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

November 22 1997: INXS frontman Michael Hutchence is found dead in a Sydney hotel room.

December 16 1997: An episode of Pokemon is aired in Japan that causes 385 children to go into seizures.

December 17 1997: The term “weblog” is coined.

December 18 1997: Comedian Chris Farley dies.

January 12 1998: 19 European nations vote to ban human cloning.

January 22 1998: The Unabomber pleads guilty, accepts life without parole.

January 26 1998: Bill Clinton goes on TV to tell the nation he did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.

February 7 1998: The Winter Olympics open in Nagano, Japan.

March 3 1998: Titanic picks up 11 awards at the Oscars.

March 27 1998: The FDA approves Viagra to be used to treat male impotence and the world of email spam would change forever.

April 22 1998: Disney’s Animal Kingdom park opens up at Walt Disney World.

May 1998: A few short video clips of Duke Nukem Forever shown at E3.

Sigh… still no Duke Nukem… I might as well not play computer games at all

May 7 1998: Apple unveils the iMac.

May 11 1998: The first Euro coins are minted.

May 14 1998: Frank Sinatra dies.

June 1998: 3D Realms announces that they were changing DNF’s 3D engine to the Unreal engine. At this point, a 1999 release was assured.

June 8 1998: Charleton Heston becomes president of the NRA.

July 5 1998: Japan launches a probe to Mars, joining the elite club of spacefaring nations.

September 7 1998: Google is founded.

September 8 1998: Mark McGwire breaks baseball’s single season homerun record.

October 14 1998: Eric Rudolph is charged with 6 bombings in Atlanta, Ga.

November 3 1998: Jesse Ventura is elected governor of Minnesota.

November 27 1998: The Sega Dreamcast goes on sale in Japan.

December 19 1998: Bill Clinton is impeached by the US House of Representatives over the Lewinksy scandal.

1999: Still no Duke Nukem, undergoes another engine change.

The lack of DNF obviously disturbed some children

1999: The Euro rolls out, Hugo Chavez becomes president of Venezuela, the territory of Nunavut is created in Canada, Wayne Gretsky plays his final game, the Columbine High School massacre, SpongeBob Squarepants debuts, Napster debuts, Yugoslavia and NATO sign a treaty ending the Kosovo War, GW Bush announces he is running for president, Woodstock 99 is held and burns down, Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France, world population hits 6 billion, Vermont legalizes same-sex unions, Boris Yeltsin out– Putin in, US turns the Panama canal over to Panama

December 1999: 3D Realms sends out DNF Christmas cards, hinting at a 2000 release.

George Bush doesn’t care about Duke Nukem

2000: Y2K bug turns out to be no big deal, AOL buys Time-Warner, Charles Schultz dies– last original Peanuts strip, Windows 2000 released, Finnish constitution re-written, Mt. Etna erupts, Elian Gonzalez returns to Cuba, Confederate submarine found after 139 years, Summer Olympics in Sydney Australia, Slobodan Milosevic leaves office, Steve Allen dies, George W Bush defeats Al Gore in the US election, Vincente Fox becomes president of Mexico

December 2000: 3D Realms sens out DNF Christmas cards, hinting at a 2001 release.

If Duke Nukem Forever isn’t released, the terrorists win

2001: Wikipedia goes online, Dale Earnhardt is killed at the Daytona 500, Mac OS X debuts, Space tourist Dennis Tito returns to Earth, Pervez Musharraf becomes president of Pakistan, 3000 people killed in September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in NY and the Pentagon– the “War on Terror” begins, United States invades Afghanistan, the iPod makes its debut, Windows XP is unveiled, Microsoft XBox rolls out, the Nintendo Gamecube debuts, George Harrison dies, Enron files for bankruptcy

Summer 2001: 3D Realms releases a 2 1/2 minute DNF gameplay trailer.

2002: WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl kidnapped, 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, Britain’s Queen Mother dies, Jimmy Carter visits Cuba, East Timor gains independence, “American Taliban” John Lindh pleads guilty to aiding and abetting the enemy, WorldCom files for bankruptcy, Switzerland joins the UN, the DC Beltway sniper shootings, US Department of Homeland Security created

2002: 3D Realms hires all new programmers and decide to switch game engines again, this time creating their own. 3D Realms announces that 95% of the already designed levels have been scrapped.

Early 2003: Take Two, 3D Realms’ publisher announced DNF would be out by the end of the year.

Colin Powell makes the case to the UN for a new Duke Nukem game

2003: Colin Powell goes to the UN over Iraq, 100 people die in nightclub fire in Rhode Island, first SARS global alert announced, US and UK invade Iraq, Saddam Hussein is forced out of power and later captured, Human Genome Project completed, Old Man of the Mountain crumbles in New Hampshire, Eric Rudolph captured in NC, Robert Novak blows Valerie Plame’s cover as a CIA operative, Saddam Hussein’s sons killed, pizza guy with a bomb strapped around his neck robs a bank, last old VW Beetle rolls off the line, Concorde makes it last flight, Michael Jackson arrested on child molestation charges

2004: San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings takes 11 Oscars, 190 killed in Madrid train bombings, Abu Ghraib prison abuse exposed, last Oldsmobile rolls off the assembly line, video of American Nick Berg being decapitated hits the web, Mass. legalizes same-sex marriage, Ronald Reagan dies, SpaceShipOne becomes the first private craft to achieve space flight, 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Colin Powell resigns– replaced by Condi Rice, World of Warcraft released, George W Bush beats John Kerry and is re-elected President of the US, over 186,000 people die in tsunamis triggerd by a 9.3 offshore earthquake

September 2004: GameSpot.com reveals a rumor that DNF has switched engines for the 5th time.

2005: A 200×125 screenshot (more like a bad 3D render) shows up on 3D Realms’ job site.

3D Realms has even made God angry

2005: North Korea announces it has nukes, 66 year old woman givs birth, Saudi Arabia holds its first ever elections (guys only), Kyoto Protocol goes into effect, NHL cancels its 2004-2005 season, BTK killer apprehended 31 years later in Kansas, Steve Fossett completes the first solo non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world, Doctor Who returns to the BBC, Pope John Paul II dies– Pope “Eggs” Benedict XVI takes over, Prince Charles marries Camilla Bowles, W. Mark Felt confirmed as Deep Throat, Live 8 Concert, John Roberts appointed to Supreme Court after retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor– later becomes Chief Justice after the death of Wiliam Rehnquist, 4 explosions rock the London Underground killing 56, Over 1800 killed when Hurricane Katrina sweeps through Mississippi and Louisiana, Angela Merkel elected German chancellor, cartoons of Muhummad causes a whole bunch of people to lose their ever-loving minds, 80,000 killed in Kashmir earthquakes, Ted Koppel retires, first human face transplant

2006: Stephen Harper elected PM of Canada, 12 coal miners die in WV disaster, Hamas takes power in Palestine, Samuel Alito joins the Supreme Court, 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin Italy, the Devil doesn’t rise from Hell as predicted, Iranian pres confirms he has weapons-grade uranium, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi killed in Iraq, Top of the Pops goes off the air in the UK, Pluto is demoted to dwarf planet, Google buys YouTube, Ban Ki-moon is elected as the new UN Secretary General, Microsoft IE7 released, Saddam Hussein hangs, Nintendo Wii released, Windows Vista released, Chinese River Dolphin goes extinct

Barry Bonds just took steroids so he could look like Duke Nukem

2007: Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female US Speaker of the House, Red Cross and Red Crescent announce non-religious Red Crystal unit, Mega Millions sets $370 million world lottery record, BBC Alan Johnston kidnapped in Gaza, Iran releases British sailors, Tony Blair resigns and is replaced by Gordon Brown in the UK, massacre at Virginia Tech, Bob Barker leaves the Price is Right, Apple releases the iPhone, final Harry Potter novel released, Barry Bonds break Hank Aaron’s home run record, Alberto Gonzales resigns, the Burj Dubai becomes the world’s largest free-standing structure, Writers Guild of America goes on strike, Led Zeppelin reunites

December 19 2007: A Duke Nukem Forever teaser trailer is unleashed upon the world, giving hope that will probably just lead to more disappointment.