Armageddon 2419 A.D. is a science fiction novella by Philip Francis Nowlan that first appeared in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel called The Airlords of Han was published in the March 1929 issue of Amazing Stories. Both stories are now in the public domain in the U.S. according to the Project Gutenberg website. In the 1960s, Nowlan's two novellas were combined by editor Donald A. Wollheim into one paperback novel, titled Armageddon 2419 A.D. Overview Nowlan's novella tells about the United States in the 25th century, conquered by Hans in 2109 AD and only now beginning to rebel. Sometime after World War I, nearly all the European powers joined forces against the United States. Although the U.S. won the war, both sides were devastated by the conflict. Taking advantage of the chaos that followed, the "Russian Soviets" (Soviet Union) joined forces with the "Mongolians" to take over Europe. The U.S. collapsed economically and stagnated while the Hans turned against the Russians and defeated them as part of their campaign of world conquest. American efforts to avoid war with the Hans failed, and in 2109 AD, the latter attacked the US using fleets of airships armed with disintegrator rays. They attacked from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and down from Canada. After conquering the U.S. and Canada, these "Airlords of Han" ruled North America as a province of the world empire, from 15 great cities they established across the continent. They ignored the Americans, who were left to fend for themselves in the forests and mountains as the Hans' advanced technology prevented the need for slave labor. From time to time, they raid American land "to keep the 'wild' Americans on the run within the shelter of their forests, and prevent their becoming a menace to the Han civilization." Living in cooperative gangs and hiding in the forests from the Hans, Americans secretly rebuild their civilization and develop the new technologies "inertron" and "ultron". Inertron is a substance with "reverse weight" (anti-gravitational properties), so that a person carrying an amount of inertron equal to most of his weight (in the form of a "jumper" – "rocket motors encased in inertron blocks and strapped to the back") can travel rapidly across country in long leaps. Ultron, in turn, is an "absolutely invisible and non-reflective solid of great molecular density and moderate elasticity, which has the