100 BC - 200 AD
Shifter gladiators are both exploited and celebrated for their perceived ferocity in the ring.
Shifters are well known amongst humans, and there is a long and fractured history between the two groups. This has influenced the world in many ways, making it subtly different to ours. It is impossible to list every major event they played a part in, and for every country to boot, but below are a selection to give some sense of this world.
Shifter gladiators are both exploited and celebrated for their perceived ferocity in the ring.
A pair of lions kill 135 men working on the Kenya-Uganda railway, their unusual intelligence prompting many to assume they are anti-colonial shifters from the local communities. The British government enacts a law preventing shifters from visiting zoos without a permit.
Alongside things like name, nationality, and complexion, shifters are required to display their identities in many countries' passports.
Triggered by fears about espionage via shifters, the British government orders a mass culling of dogs* both nationally and amongst their colonies, particularly India, Hong Kong, and across Southeast Asia. People with pet dogs are regarded with suspicion, and many pets are abandoned.
*This is due to a misconception that shifters can only transform into animals of similar size. Certain farm animals such as goats and sheep were considered for culling too, but due to their rural locations and use for food, the order was ultimately not passed.
In the UK and its colonies, a law is passed enabling lighter sentencing, or no sentencing at all, for attacking a shifter out of panic.
The popularity of pet dogs, but only small breeds, begins to rise again after repeated association of the bulldog with Winston Churchill. A second wave of dog culls takes place in many other countries involved in the war.
Miscarriages and fetal abnormalities due to toxoplasmosis reach an all-time high as the number of pet cats booms.
From approximately 1950 to 1980, refugees swam from mainland China to Macau and Hong Kong Island, but the biggest influx happened in May of this year. Among them were shifters, also fleeing the communist government. An old turtle shifter is known amongst the community as a saviour of refugees, carrying some on his back or allowing them to cling to his shell as he crossed the harbour, and the turtle becomes a symbol for the Hong Kong shifter community. Both Hong Kong and Macau continue to have higher than average concentrations of shifters to this day.
A rabies vaccine for dogs developed by the Van Houlewing Research Laboratory results in the eradication of rabies from the Phillipines.
With only small dog populations remaining, and following the success of the Phillipines' anti-rabies program, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan officially eradicate the disease. Other SEA countries and India follow within a few years.
A cat-allergy pill safe for daily use is successfully developed, due to high worldwide numbers of pet cats and continued rejection of dogs in many countries.
Throughout the US, the triad of drugs used to treat toxoplasmosis begins to increase in price.
Gilbert's potoroo becomes extinct in the wild due to feral cat predation. A cryptococcosis epidemic threatens to kill captive individuals as well.
A human toxoplasmosis vaccine is successfully developed.
Hong Kong operates on a "know, but don't tell" basis with shifters. They are widely known about, and the law doesn't penalise them for being open, but society as a whole does. Western countries such as the UK, US and Australia have pockets where they are openly accepted.