The Time Machine
Pick a year. See who ran the world, who won, and what everyone was watching.
1980
The Miracle on Ice18/18 boards reach this year
Francesco Cossiga is Prime Minister of Italy
Anwar Sadat is President of Egypt
Leonid Brezhnev is General Secretary of Russia
Jorge Rafael Videla (Military Junta) is President of ArgentinaThe world
Countries
Who held every territory on earth, and how many people lived in it.
World Leaders
Who ruled where, on any month in recorded history. The deepest board here by a distance.
The Power Atlas
The balance of power across five centuries, ranked from superpower down.
A Day in American History
Any day since Washington: the President, the Cabinet, the Court, both chambers, every governor.
A Day in British Political History
Any day since the Union: the Sovereign, the PM, the great offices, both Houses.
Sport
Champions
Every reigning champion on earth in the same month, under the names they had then.
Olympic Games
Every Games from Athens 1896 to Milano-Cortina 2026.
The club football map, by season
Slide through the seasons and watch the clubs appear, move and fold.
The Universal Index, any week
The best team on Earth across five leagues, every Tuesday since 1946, under the names they had then.
Culture
Film, year by year
What a year at the cinema looked like: the money, and the Academy.
US Number Ones
Week by week, the film on top of the American box office.
The Academy Awards
All ninety-eight ceremonies, winners and the field they beat.
The 500 Greatest Films
The canon laid out along the century that made it.
Awards History
Sixty-eight ceremonies deciding what the year sounded like.
Money
The Biggest Companies
The largest companies of every year since 1955, as the list was published at the time — era-correct names, placed in the metro they were really run from.
Markets, all the way back
Daily closes back to 1885. Real terms or nominal, any eight series on one axis.
Currencies
What a currency was worth, day by day, against the dollar.
Play
The Banter Engine
PRIVATE BETAThe time machine with a person in it. Pick a moment and talk to a local who only knows what was known then. Invented characters, real dated facts, and a tester key required for now.
Take a lookWhere these come from
The panels and the “also in” strip are read live from the same files their own boards read, so this page cannot disagree with what it points at, and the strip draws a fresh handful from a wide pool each visit, so the same year tells a different story twice. The boards start in different centuries: power in 1500, population in 1800, champions in 1860, film in 1920, and a panel outside its range says so rather than going blank. Five boards open directly on your chosen year; the rest open at their own default until they learn to read a year from the address bar.