HISTORY OF PERILO

The earliest civilization within the area of the Republic emerged approximately 1500 BCE, with the development of the Tectec civilization along the coastal plain and the floodplain of the Big Muddy River.  Tectec civilization appears to have suffered a rapid disintegration with the abandonment of villages and towns and evidence of mass killings approximately 200 BCE, and no viable political and social organization emerged until the rise of the Ossippee Empire in the early 600s CE. 

The Ossippee Empire extended along the coast and in the Piedmont region, and was distinguished by the construction of towns and villages on the Ossippee Ridge and on large raised mounds on the Coastal Plain and in the Piedmont.  The imperial capital was at the largest of these mounds approximately 20 miles south of Glencoe.  The Ossippee constructed a network of roads and canals for commerce, the remains of which remain in operation to this date.  Although the Ossippee Empire remained in existence when the first Europeans landed, the Empire had entered a general decline in the 1400s CE and appears to have fragmented into individual local fiefdoms.

At the same time, the Smoke Valley People, a civilization about which little is known, emerged in approximately 500 CE in the Northern Massif and Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the Valley of Smoke, and the edges of the Great Waste.  The Smoke Valley civilization coexisted and traded the products of its mining and smelting activities with the Ossippee Empire until its disappearance in the 1200s CE.   The Smoke Valley people were noted for the construction of large geometric figures on the terrain in the Great Waste.

The first Europeans landed at the mouth of the Great Muddy River when a Spanish expedition under the command of General Admiral the Marquis of Carbonel arrived with a flotilla of five vessels in 1587.  Spain, France, the Netherlands, and England all claimed part or all of the land area of Perilo in the period from 1587 through 1748, and military operations were mounted from the various settlements during each of the series of European wars of that period.  As a defense against seaborne attacks as part of this ongoing warfare, large fortifications, termed castles, were erected at Georgetown in 1682, Portsmouth in 1693, and at Ashby in 1711.   Finally, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle at the end of the War of Austrian Succession in 1748 resulted in England gaining permanent control over Perilo and the coast on either side of the current Republic.

In 1810 the first permanent colonial armed force was established with the creation of the Revenue Cutter Service, charged with the collection of duties on goods shipped by vessel, the collection of port fees, and the suppression of smuggling and piracy. 

The first major highway development started in 1822 with the effort to construct a plank road from Glencoe to Georgetown, following the remains of an old Ossippee roadway.  The first railway line was started in 1857 to link Hogben and Glencoe.  

Portsmouth Military Academy, a private residential school, was established in 1851, initially providing the contemporary equivalent of an A Level secondary education.  Portsmouth Military Academy first granted Baccalaureate degrees in engineering in 1876.  Graduates served as citizen soldiers and greatly influenced the development of a capable colonial militia system in the 1880s and 1890s.  Border tensions in the late 1800s and early 1900s forced the colonial government to increase the number of trained military and naval officers.  This requirement was addressed by the establishment of the Military Academy in 1903.

In 1851 commercial copper mining started in the Cripple Creek District.  In 1855 coal mining started near Victoria. 

In 1863 the colonial government initiated reconstruction of coastal defenses to account for significant change in naval guns and land based siege artillery and to incorporate lessons in modern fortification design learned by Perilan observers in the American Civil war.  The resulted in the construction of Forts Pinder and Michelle on offshore islands to defend fleet anchorages and the entrance to the Great Muddy River, and the erection of batteries at the entrance to the various channels of the Great Muddy delta.  The original castles constructed at the major ports were replaced by integrated defenses covering both the port facilities and the land approaches to the cities.

In 1878 the Geographical Survey Office was established as part of the colonial administration, and the first detailed mapping surveys of Perilo were initiated the following year.

In 1888 Soapy Smith, a notorious and lucky gambler, gunfighter, and racketeer, purchased the Cripple Creek Mine and, to everyone's surprise, gave up a career of crime for that of mining entrepreneur.  By 1902 Soapy had achieved both success and respectability sufficient to be elected Premier of the Province of the North, a position he held for 16 years until his retirement.  

The general European colonial expansion of the late 1800s resulted in border tensions between the British colony of Perilo and the French territory to the east.  The border was finally fixed by negotiation along the August-Picot line, surveyed in 1907.  France retained ownership of the territory to the north bordering on the Great Waste, but to this day the exact northern border has not been surveyed and marked.

In 1894 the colonial Customs Service was established.

In 1910 the Perilo Constabulary was placed on a permanent footing, and the first Constabulary barracks were constructed.

In 1912 the colonial Weather Service was established with observers in major cities providing observations by telegraph twice a day to the central weather office in Glencoe.  A daily forecast was issued by telegraph to major government offices and to the newspapers.

The Perilan militia was called to active duty in both World War I and World War II, and manned coastal fortifications at Georgetown, Ashby, and Portsmouth.  One battalion of infantry (the Perilo Fusiliers, now the 1st Battalion Fusilers) served in Africa in World War I, and a squadron of Hurricane fighters (No. 718 Squadron, now 1st Interceptor Squadron) served with the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain.  In 1942 Perilan colonial forces (air, land, and naval) were part of the combined British and Free French force that expelled the pro-Vichy colonial government and brought the neighboring French colony into World War II on the allied side.

In 1922 the Geographical Survey Office was renamed the Coast, Geological, and Geographical Survey Department.

In 1925 the first emergency medical services organization, the Cripple creek First Aid Squad, was founded by Alphonse Hill, the railroad section supervisor at Cripple Creek.  This led to a slow expansion of volunteer first aid services, but the conversion to modern emergency medical services did not come until 1976 when two physicians at Copeland National Medical Center obtained materials for teaching the emergency medical technician program from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.  However, the first attempts at standardizing emergency medical services delivery did not come to closure until the adoption of the Republic's first ambulance regulation in 2005.  

In 1933 the small amateur radio community in Perilo organized its first national radio relay system to transmit personal messages across the colony.  Originally twelve amateur radio stations relayed messages through a net control station in Glencoe.  In the first year of operation the system handled 403 messages.  As the possibility of a major war increased in 1939, 43 amateur radio operators formed the Amateur Radio Disaster Corps to support the armed forces and the new Air Raid Precautions Service.

The first airline, Trans-Perilo Airways, was established in 1935, being renamed Perilo Air in 1963.

In 1938 concerns about developing conflict in Europe led the colonial government to appoint an air raid precautions committee.  With the invasion of Poland in 1939, this committee became the core of the Air Raid Precautions Service, which eventually mobilized a small Air Raid Wardens corps and established shelters in the three coastal cities.  The Air Raid Wardens were responsible for visual detection and reporting of attacking aircraft, blackouts, and coordinating rescue operations in the event of hostile air attack.  An Air Raid Control Center was constructed in a hardened bunker on the outskirts of Nueva Leon to receive reports of hostile aircraft, forward them to the limited anti-aircraft gun and fighter aircraft defenses, and coordinate response to damage.  The Air Raid Precautions Service was stood down in 1945, and the Air Raid Control Center closed (although it remains a government building).

After World War II Great Britain granted Perilo independence on 8 January 1947 as part of the post-war retrenchment from its colonial empire.

In 1950 the increased potential for global nuclear war caused the government to establish a National Civil Defense Office to be responsible for nuclear war survival programs, including planning, training, facility construction, and volunteer recruitment.  Starting in 1954, one of the major initiatives of the Office was the construction of hardened and fallout protected emergency operations centers for the Provinces, National Capital Region, and the six Class I Cities.  The last of these facilities was completed in 1958.  Also in 1958,  responsibility for natural and other disaster response was assigned to the Office.

In 1952 the Coast, Geological, and Geographical Survey Department's names was simplified to the Geological Survey of Perilo.  Although the name change implied a narrower mission, the Survey retained the basic mapping, hydrological, and geographical missions of its predecessor offices.

In 1973 the end of the Vietnam War resulted in the influx of a substantial number of Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian refugees, many of whom settled in the coastal region..

Large offshore deposits of oil were discovered in 1988, leading to the development of the oil industry in Perilo.

In 1992 the National Civil Defense Office was elevated to Ministry status in the government, and was renamed the Ministry of Extreme Situations to better reflect its day to day role.  However, it retained a wartime mission of coordination of civil defense operations.

In 1996, the order of Saint Randulf the Bishop, a humanitarian organization with a wide participant base, agreed to develop a nationwide volunteer ambulance organization to supplement the capabilities of the volunteer and paid emergency medical services at special events and in disasters.