All in Unreal Worlds
So when it comes down to it, Europe was born the child of a giant five-horned sea monster: Merovech, or maybe Merovee. We've briefly mentioned the story before, when we accused Napoleon of making a Faustian (or at least Lovecraftian) deal with a Dagon-esque creature in a bid to become emperor of Europe. But let's go over it again. A 5th century Frankish king named Chlodio conquered a good chunk of what is today France and Germany.
The nascent intelligence apparatus of the young United States survived the end of the Revolutionary War, ultimately fighting a undocumented war with a supernatural threat that had -- for lack of a better term -- invaded the young nation in the closing days of the 18th century. Vampires, particularly powerful in New England, preyed upon isolated villages and families, spreading a plague of undeath hidden among the vast number of contemporary cases of pulmonary Tuberculosis. Even as an ultra-secret espionage organization fought them, these vampires used influential men among America's elite to forward their agenda: Aaron Burr may have been one of their most prominent human agents, as might have been prominent diplomat and former Presidential secretary Tobias Lear.