Back in world war 1, people had stupid guns. Then, they started using bigger ones. And tanks. So people started dieing faster. And tanks started to be destoryed by other tanks and big guns. The germans didnt like being defeated, so they started to research a way of defending their tanks against those of other people's. October 21st, 1921 brought on a whole new meaning to the research they were doing.
During research for some magnetic-forced powered armor, The Germans discovered that they could actually slow down the bullets so slow that they could be picked out of the magnetic fields by hand, with no damage done to either the tank nor the hand.
After Years of research, they finally perfected the technique, and decided to test it out on infantry. This didnt go so well, with the strenghth of the magnetic field often crushing parts of the human subjects, or even killing them. With a bit more tweaking, they discovered something that would change the way we live our lives.
On a cool October night, a man wearing a watch went into the magnetic field for twenty minutes. When he came out, the watch had only changed by 12 minutes and 23 seconds. Not only had the objects entering the field had passed slower, but the passage of time had also slowed down. Thinking it had something to do with the magnetic fields, the scientists thought nothing of it. However, after experimenting with biochemicals inside the field, they discovered something that they were not trying to achieve: Time travel. They could slow down the passage of time to just under 50% of the usual passage.
Eventually, they went on to making a prototype that actually went AHEAD in time, however the prototype was stolen and the lab destroyed. This did not stop the German scientists from working as hard as they could from getting a new one. In no time, they had an improved version of the Machine, and sent a test subject to the future. He was to collect rock samples from the time and bring them back, just a simple voyage. The man returned, but he brought back bacteria and viruses that were unknown to us at the time. The whole team of scientists died within hours.
The project was shutdown, and prototypes destroyed. The scientists said that the possible death of all humanity was not worth the technology. The people who did know about this eventually all went missing or died from unknown causes, and it was almost forgotten. But time flows like a river... And history repeats its self...