I really dont understand the time-line of the whole thing, and the end of the world..

I mean, In game, its 2277 right?

So, the Apocalypse took place 200 years ago, meaning 2077, right?
And if so, how come whatever is left of the world is from the 1950's?

Sorry, I just dont get it, can someone clarify the origins of the game for me, Its just not explained clearly enough for me..

No, im not a retard -.-
I just didnt get this one particular aspect of the game.

the game is based on the optimistic 50s

Culture and society was locked in the 50s.

This. After WW2 the US of Fallout 3 and the world today split, the US Today becoming what it is, well, today. And the US of Fallout 3 becoming stuck in The World of Tomorrow "nightmare". People have personal robots, radiation gives people super powers and makes insects grow to huge monsters, Ray Guns you can buy and carry in your pocket, nuclear powered cars. All thanks to SCIENCE!

Edit: The electron tube was used instead of the microchip. The fear of nuclear power never manifested as it did in our world. Nineteen-fifties morals and standards where though of as the great ideals that would never die. And they didn't.

And neither did the hairstyles! Yay for hair stylists!

I'm gonna go down to my baitch Butch and get me a new 'do!

"I'm gonna barber the hell out of your hair."

I love Butch, too bad he's about the most worthless fighter ever in the Wastes.

Not our 2077 though.

Fallout is an extention of "Alternative History". Instead of the Swinging 60's and 70's as your history book records it, American culture and technology didn't move in that direction; instead it moved in the direction that folks in the 1950's thought the future would look like, The original Tomorrowland at DisneyLand is often cited as an inspiration.

My understanding was that after WW2 in this alternate universe technology developed on a rapid level and human culture did not progress from the 1950's mindset due to the technological boon and tensions with the Communists.
Not enough time for people to sit around and think about world peace and rubbish like that.

I guess it follows the assumption that if war and technology is moving at such an intense pace, culture kind of falls in the background of things. Interesting concept.

Because Black Isles wanted a kitchy 50's, McCarthyistic, Science!, feel to give some flavor to what would've just been Mad Max with guns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro-futurism

I don't even know that the genre exist...

This is awesome!

FO is an alternative timeline in which advanced technology and McCarthyism-era 50's culture is blended to bring about a nuclear war with a 50's style ultra-Maoist China over the last dwindling resources on Earth.

The Fallout Universe is not our own. The Fallout Universe is an alternate universe. Everything I have ever read by Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku and other geniuses who know about real science say that the laws of other universes aren't likely to match our own. In the Fallout Universe 2077 was alot like our fifties which should give us a huge clue as to why radiation, nutrition and whether people still fear Communism two centuries after the apocalypse. Fallout is based on what people imagined would happen if there was an atomic war while they feared it during the fifties. Since all possible universes exist (according to the great minds in our own) not only is everything in Fallout 100% accurate but somewhere out there it really exists. And the voice of god there sounds like Ron Perlman and President Eden talks about baseball in Malcolm Mcdowal's voice. Also electricity, ghoulification and chinese assault rifles in caves all work no matter what.

Two words.
Divergent Reality.
Look on Fallout Wikia for the Timeline, Divergence, Resource War and Great War.