The first Star Trek episode aired closer in time to the ratification of the 19th Amendment—guaranteeing women in the US the right to vote—than to today.My flabber is officially gasted.
Now, to be fair, it isn't yet much closer. The first Star Trek episode aired Thursday, September 8, 1966 -- 16,898 days ago, or 46 years, 3 months and 5 days ago. The 19th Amendment was ratified Wednesday, August 18, 1920 -- 16,822 days (or 46 years and 21 days) prior to Star Trek's airing. (Number of days calculated using this handy tool.) In fact, given that Munroe posted this on September 29 of this year, he waited until it was true only by a day (or so, depending on the times all these things happened). Now, that was a while ago, so now it's more comfortably -- or, rather, more uncomfortably -- true.
And, as these things tend to, it will only get worse as time goes on.
...It occurs to me that Munroe probably had that thought earlier, and was waiting until it was true to post it. (The coincidence otherwise seems too great.) Which leads to the further thought that someone should set up some sort of automated system to generate such depressing thoughts automatically (just feed a list of cultural milestones into a date calculator, and voila). Which leads to the final thought that the person best suited to do this is, clearly, Randall Munroe himself.
We eagerly await his next masterpiece.
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