Marvel Cinematic Universe Timeline

a.k.a. Fury's Big Week

This chapter will connect up The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). 

Thor begins with Odin telling a story about the Jotuns trying to colonize Earth by freezing it, but he saved the humans and left the Tesseract on Earth for safekeeping (?) {965 A.D.}

Fast forward to the beginning of CA:TFA where Nazi Hydra steals the Cosmic Cube (Tesseract) from the same village where it's been safe for nearly a millennium. {March 1942}

These are two of the three times Tønsberg appears in the MCU.

In 1943, Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers attend a science fair in Flushing Meadows, New York. However, the giant globe statue in the background, known as the Unisphere, did not exist in Flushing Meadows until 1964 irl. A similar and very famous statue called the Perisphere did exist there until 1941, but Marvel chose to portray today's monument instead. This is the first of three times that it appears in the MCU.

Near the end of CA:TFA, the Tesseract drops into the ocean followed by Steve intentionally crashing a plane full of bombs. Later, Howard Stark locates the Tesseract on the ocean floor and returns it to the SSR (later known as SHIELD).

Fast forward to The Incredible Hulk, when Bruce Banner irradiates himself. In a series of images and dates, it seems he first became Hulk in 2003 or 2004 based on a surveillance image of Bruce on the run incognito. {4/18/04}