@HMS-Serapis Ahhhh there’s our mix up. I’m referring to the Version 2 rules. I don’t plan on playing with Version 3 until they are completed and there’s a full rule set and not a beta draft available! So I hadn’t looked too closely at those.
So yeah, I’m talking about the current Version 2 rules still. But, it sounds like with what Version 3 is going off of, that the rule should probably be that things cannot begin to be researched even until July 1939, in answer to my question. That would be quite the deviation from the Version 2 rules if that were not the case.