Umbrella's Born

 1966

The paving stones for Umbrella started in 1966, when Lord Ozwell E. Spencer led an expedition into Africa with his friend Sir Edward Ashford, fellow scientist Doctor. James Marcus and Marcus' student Brandon Bailey, to find the lost kingdom of the Ndipaya. Ozwell had studied an encyclopedia by explorer Henry Travis, that described a legend of a plant that gave great powers to those who could survive its poisonous blossom.
The two rediscovered the lost kingdom of the Ndipaya, an ancient underground city surrounding the legendary flower, which Travis referred to as the "Stairway to the Sun" This flower produced a previously unrecorded virus which Spencer, Ashford and Marcus established as the Progenitor virus.
When they returned to North America in 1967, they discovered that the flowers could not produce the virus if cultivated outside their habitat. In March, Spencer had the idea of starting a company, though the idea was disliked by Brandon, who felt that it was pointless without being able to produce Progenitor.
In this year, architect George Trevor- after working since '1962 - completed the Spencer estate and its lab. He and his family would be used as guinea pigs for Progenitor. 1968 was a notable year. Umbrella was founded, Ashford died from exposure to the virus ^{[citation needed]} and Brandon was forced to stay in Africa and run the Umbrella Africa Research Center and send samples to Dr. Marcus' newly built Training facility.^[1]
In 1969, Edward's son Alexander began the construction of the Antarctic Transport Terminal, attached to which was a research centre where he began development of his "Code: Veronica" project. This was his research into the gene that controls intelligence. Two years later, Alfred and Alexia would be born from his research.
Seeking new information on Progenitor, Marcus had several of his students infected with the virus. They were however, unable to survive its effects and died, their corpses dumped in the Water Treatment facility.