What the world learned from the first 20 minutes of the film (SPOILERS)

Even though its the same post as before, these spoilers still manage to keep us in suspense as to what will happen in the film.

Here's my current understanding of the timeline, based on trailers and interviews with the director:

1950s - Godzilla awakened (created?) by nuclear testing in the Pacific. Some "natural" disasters on islands occur as a result of his presence.

1956 - The US government (and perhaps Japan) is aware of the beast and unsuccessfully tries to use nuclear weapons to destroy it. The world thinks these are nuclear tests.

1956 - Based on presumed-to-be-unreliable story of a monster in the Pacific, Toho makes a movie about "Gojira", a giant radioactive monster, fitting the description given to them.

1960s-90s - "Godzilla" becomes a popular movie franchise, prompting Toho to create more and more fictional monsters to battle Godzilla in the movies, who is now a heroic figure. Note that these monsters are all FICTIONAL in this world (in other words, this is a complete wipe and reboot).

1999? - The real Godzilla, however, is still around. Tremors caused by him cause a nuclear plant accident in Japan where Bryan Cranston's character works as a nuclear physicist along with his wife. The accident is blamed on an earthquake.

2014? - 15 years later, still haunted by the events in Japan, Cranston pieces together details of other "natural" disasters and concludes that government(s) are hiding the real cause.

2014? - Perhaps as a potential defense against Godzilla, the government has been creating giant creatures (MUTOs) in the Nevada desert. They are either released or escape and end up battling the big guy.

I don't think the movie will actually reference Godzilla's past franchise in its timeline. 

Nice theory @RF 

Edwards better not give in to the people asking for a Pacific Rim crossover. The two films have a completely different feel and to be honest even though I expected to love PR I found it rather meh.