The communist manifesto was published on 21 February 1848 and coincidentally the next day a revolt starts in Paris, leading to the abdication of King Louis Philippe on 24 February and the subsequent proclamation of the Second Republic. The context is of course broader as the Irish crops failures of 1846 sent a ripple of devastating consequences to all Europe. Sadly, about 1 million Irishmen perished because of that and many other fled to America to escape hunger. The 1800s were hard times indeed. I believe The Matrix starts with this also, painted as an alien invasion of some sort. Maybe the term "alien" is offensive to someone who's been here earlier in many ways. Ok, maybe scratch the last gray remark.
Discussion
well, idk how far you read into Apocalypse but the alien invasion started after the losers of the "war in heaven" fled in their boats circumnavigating africa and showing up in the middle east via the red sea and using their advanced knowledge to enslave the nascent agricultural peoples of the region at the time... this was before the meteor that burned the shit out of everything from there across north africa, something like about 15000 years ago
and they also spread across the atlantic too, and impersonated kukulkan and established the aztec ritual murder, and scattered across the continent and built pyramids everywhere... in china, in the balkans, in south america, in many parts of africa, but their most well known origins were on the shores of the red sea