From the people (well, person) who brought you The 1966 Game, we present…
The Time Flies Game!
It’s the game where you get to see just how long it’s been, and what that means in terms of other eras.
We live in a sort of eternal now, thinking that the past is the present, and never realizing just how fast time is flying past us. With The Time Flies game, we’ll let you in on some secrets of how far you are in time from things you think you know, and how that compares with other events and their pasts.
Ready to play? (The game is you create your own entries. These are just starters.)
It’s June 2006. Do you know how long it’s been?
- You are now further in time from the events of September 11,
2001, 4 years and 9 months, than VJ Day was from Pearl Harbor, 4 years and 8 months. - You are now just as removed in time from the Monica Lewinsky
scandal (9 years) than Apollo 11 was from the first Mercury launch (8 years). - Hip-hop is now older, 26 years, than rock music was at the height of disco, roughly 23 years.
- You are now further removed in time, 32 years, from the
resignation of Richard M. Nixon than Nixon was, then, from the start of
his own political career, 28 years. - Like the Beatles? We’re now further removed from their American debut, 42 years, than the Beatles themselves were from the death of Rudolph Valentino, 39 years.
- I Love Lucy debuted in 1952, 54 years ago. That’s the same distance in time as the Lucy debut was from the Spanish-American War.
- We are now nearly as far removed in time from the movie debut of Gone with the Wind, 67 years, than that event was from the end of the Civil War, 74 years.
- At Gettsyburg Lincoln dated the nation’s age from the Declaration of Independence, "four score and seven years (87) ago." Four score and seven years ago was the Treaty of Versailles.
Keep playing our game, and think…
Here’s a nice variant, to help see events from your children’s point of view:
1. Take some big historical event that you remember from your own life. e.g the Moon landing, 1969.
2. Work out how long it was before your children were born, e.g. 32 years.
3. Work out the date that long before you were born, so in my case I get 1938.
In other words, the first landing on the Moon is as remote to my son as 1938 is to me.
Here’s a nice variant, to help see events from your children’s point of view:
1. Take some big historical event that you remember from your own life. e.g the Moon landing, 1969.
2. Work out how long it was before your children were born, e.g. 32 years.
3. Work out the date that long before you were born, so in my case I get 1938.
In other words, the first landing on the Moon is as remote to my son as 1938 is to me.