Viking language. They didn't have our alphabet, they used runes. Research them: they're basically ready-made spells.
2016-2034 (Peak Oil aka The Slump): Rising prices of oil cause economic seizures and destabilizes multiple nations.
2020-2024 (North American Conflict): American states undergo civil war.
2022: First mili-tech neural augmentation in use
2024: Atrocities committed by transhuman (I.E, cybernetic) soldiers ends neural augmentation.
2029: Big Nugget – asteroid, 4.3 miles in diameter – detected on collision course for Earth.
2030: Joint Chinese/American space effort reaches Big Nugget.
2031: Big Nugget slowed to stable orbit around Earth. Hollowed out and turned into The Forge, an orbital industrial facility.
2032: Joint Chinese/American lunar colonization effort begins.
2034: Lunar Helium-3 fuels first fusion reactors. Economic instability due to peak oil ends as fusion powers transportation and infrastructure for 65% of the planet.
2038: Space colonization continues. Construction of LEO terraforming stations slows climate change.
2039-Present Day (The Amalgamation): China and America sign the Chinese American Alliance, creating a super-federal government that spans both continents and promises to lead the world into a brighter future, focused on space travel.
2040-2044 (Singularity Scare): Civilian transhumanists engage in illegal augmentation. Resulting transhumans suffer from body dysmorphia, sociopathic behavior, schizophrenia, and megalomania. Their incredible power and anti-social tendencies combine in some of the worst terror attacks in human history.
2045: Transhumanism dies down. Space colonization and industrialization continue. Lunar colonists begin demanding independence and representation in the CAA senate.
2045-2067 (Golden Age): Immense material wealth brings an unprecedented economic growth throughout the CAA, which ripples outward into the world at large. The United African Nations is forged. The European Union reforms. The Central-Southern Confederation forms.
2049: Drusilla Xao born.
2050: Omar Kaufman forms the Lunar Liberation Front
2051-2060 (Lunarian Protests): Lunar Liberation Front continues to protest, ineffectually.
2061: Construction of Space Elevator begins.
2067: Story begins.
I'm still in English class, AND LOOK AT ME NOW!