Despoina's War

This war did not last long, maybe two days at most. At least, that's how long the fighting lasted. The events that led up to it, the smaller skirmishes and conflicts, those are harder to gauge. In the end, this was perhaps a hundred years in the making.
  Triggered in some sense by Reveka Aloumetri, Princess of Vielene and the other first public superheroes, the population of the world faced a growing unease about the people around them with powers. They'd existed to some degree for a long time, but to use it so publicly for more was unusual.
  Despoina's War was fought in 1902 over the Amulet of Mirrors, then known as Despoina's Necklace. It grants powers, meant to be used by a particular person for a particular purpose, not that anyone involved in this new that. It was essentially a war of greed, fought between two enhanced who wanted more power for themselves. The conflict shaped up to include entire nations, and could have been one of the bloodiest ever.
  The saving grace in the situation, the thing that made it so that people with powers weren't regarded with suspicion and scorn, was the third party. A band of superheroes came together and stopped those two, and they did so in a coordinated global way.
  There were still a lot of casualties, and a lot of damage, but for the most part it was over and done with in a matter of two days, and in a way that united people.
  It led to the creation of SIVIC, as a way to gauge, classify and record powers, and also to learn how to contain, combat, and control those who wielded them as necessary.