Recent World Events your characters would know

Recent World Events in the Campaign World that differ from Earth's real time line

1858: English explorers discover a large lake in the center of the Great Rift Valley, naming it after Queen Victoria, but unable to bring  home news of the discovery, as their expedition met its doom to unknown assailants. A letter makes it home in 1861, brought in by the mail from an unknown source, that details the vast lake, a thriving culture of local tribesmen and a mysterious "King of the Lake" that shuns all outside influence.

1880: The British East India Company is restructed. Its military forces are absorbed into the British military and most of its officers are either taken over or let go. While weakened militarily, the company is given a new charter to pursue investments, trade and business opportunities globally on behalf of the Crown.

1908: Significant meteor strike in Siberia accompanied by several lunar impacts observed by astronomers. Dust from impacts kicks up a halo and ring like formation around the moon for several years. Astronomers note slight change in the moon's orbit and some changes to the tides on Earth, leaving some small harbors completely dry and some others flooded out.

14 April 1914: Italian military aircraft leave for reconnaissance flight from Italian controlled Somaliland to the Lake Victoria region and are never heard from again.

9 November 1918: Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates his throne in Germany and flees to Luederiz in German Southwest Africa (Namibia), declaring a German government in exile.

23 September 1919: Allied forces sack Luederitz, but find that the Kaiser and his loyal troops are gone. Locals indicate they fled inland in motor cars. The biggest manhunt in world history begins.

7 February 1921: Dutch geology professor Krim van der Loowe reports escaping an attack by machinegun wielding men at his basecamp near Mt. Kilimanjaro. Speculation runs rampant in the press that it must have been the Kaiser and his men. The British military organizes an expedition to the area, which is never heard from again.

9 November 1923: an attempted insurrection in Munich is put down by the Weimar Republic. Most of the leadership of the insurrection is killed.

14 April 1924: Portuguese and British navy exchange shots near Gibraltar.  The "Rock Incident" is played up in the press as a prelude to a war over sea lanes, which never materializes.  In a show of good faith, the HMS Invincible puts into port in Lisbon later that year and a Portuguese flotilla sails up the Thames in early 1925.