Kevin Baugh pays his Story County property taxes every year, but he labels the payment foreign aid. This deep dive is the biography of a childhood daydream that never ended: the Republic of Molossia, an unrecognized micronation on 11.3 acres near Dayton, Nevada. We trace its origins to 1977, when a teenage Baugh inspired by the satirical film The Mouse That Roared founded the Grand Republic of Vuldstein and made a friend king, through iterations like the Kingdom of Zaria and the United Provinces of Utopia, to the 1998 land purchase that gave the project physical territory.

We explore the nation-building that followed: a flag that is Sierra Leone’s inverted, the Bank of Molossia issuing plastic Valora coins pegged to the US dollar, a national anthem, a non-alcoholic national drink of Sprite, grenadine and pineapple juice, and a legal code banning plastic bags, incandescent bulbs, walruses, catfish, spinach, onions and percussion in bathrooms while guaranteeing sunshine. We also unpack why Molossia claims to still be at war with East Germany over sleep deprivation during Baugh’s military service, how Ernst Thalmann Island was omitted from the 1990 reunification treaty, and how the 2010 internet comedy Kickassia became an official chapter of Molossian history.

• From The Mouse That Roared to Vuldstein: the teenage origins of a lifelong project
• Foreign aid on the memo line: how Baugh honors US law while preserving his narrative
• Plastic coins and fiat currency: what the Valora says about money itself
• Absurdist laws from banned walruses to a $500 Valora fine for nuclear detonation
• The Ernst Thalmann Island loophole behind a perpetual war with a defunct state