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1979: History

2018-04-11T16:23:08Z

Beautron7: inconsistent formatting

{{comic
| number = 1979
| date = April 11, 2018
| title = History
| image = history.png
| titletext = HISTORIANS: We've decided to trim the past down to make things more manageable. Using BCE/CE, would you rather we lose the odd-numbered or even-numbered years?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HISTORIAN. Needs to be expanded. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic quotes a [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19134214/httpswwwxkcdcom1979/|a lengthy section of the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph's September 30, 1881 issue]. The tragic event referenced throughout is the {{w|Assassination of James A. Garfield|assassination of President James A. Garfield}}. Interestingly, the article is about how closely studied the incident will or will not be in the future. Garfield's assassination is rarely more than a quick note in a history class, leaving only the "dry and tedious" historians to comb through the details.

The punchline comes from not how insignificant this assassination has come to be viewed, but from Megan and Cueball being baffled by the sheer scope of information contained in the past.

The title text indicates that there is more information about the past than can be researched by the manpower of available historians at this time. For whatever reason, be it lack of funding to carry out research or lack of interested people becoming historians, the facetious solution is to just ignore events of either even or odd numbered years. This would essentially halve the amount of data to go through and the amount of time to go through it, but it would be at the detriment of our understanding of all of the context of said events. The long margins on the first and second panel seem to indicate that there were originally five panels to the comic, but the second and fourth (the even ones) were removed.

==Transcript==
:[In a small panel top left, Cueball walks up to Megan who is sitting on an office chair holding a tablet showing a screen full of (to the reader) unreadable text.]
:Megan: I read this article in an old newspaper, and I can't stop thinking about it.

:[Below is a large panel twice as wide as the first, and much longer. It contains the newspaper clip that Megan talks about. Three sections of the text is in normal black font, the rest is in gray font:]
:'''The public events of the last three months are of the class which will go into its permanent history. We have been living in an atmosphere of history which will be immortally preserved.''' Even the brief series of important dates to be collated for the use of the schoolboys of centuries hence will contain the day of the assassination, and the day of the death of President Garfield. 

:The intermediate events co-related, like the defeat of Roscoe Conkling, will be of great interest, but will scarcely be likely to stand prominently out from the page of history written in 1881. To us who have been the witnesses, so to speak, of the tragic incidents of the times, it seems entirely probable that future generations will eagerly scan every feature of the recent bereavement which the nation has suffered. 

:'''How accurately will future generations know the immense volume of grief and sorrow which has rolled over the land? Will those who come after us ever be able to understand the extent of our loss?''' Is there anything in the first century of our history—even the death of the great Lincoln—which can be used as a parallel? 

:Perhaps a careful reading of the daily papers of the present period may give some future antiquarian a fine idea of the feelings of the nation during the past summer. '''But these journals are so large, so full of detail, that we imagine the coming American will never find time to read the record.''' He must depend on a brief statement, meagerly compiled by sonic dry and tedious historian. 

:::-The Bloomington Daily Pantagraph 
::: September 30,th 1881 

:[The third and final panel is the same size as the first, below and to the right. It contains a zoom in on Cueball and Megan talking.]
:Cueball: Man. The past is so '''''big. '''''
:Megan: How do historians even cope?
:Cueball: I have no idea.
:Megan: I honestly have enough trouble just with the present.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1979: History

2018-04-11T16:21:56Z

Beautron7: Added a note about the whitespace

{{comic
| number = 1979
| date = April 11, 2018
| title = History
| image = history.png
| titletext = HISTORIANS: We've decided to trim the past down to make things more manageable. Using BCE/CE, would you rather we lose the odd-numbered or even-numbered years?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HISTORIAN. Needs to be expanded. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic quotes a [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19134214/httpswwwxkcdcom1979/|a lengthy section of the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph's September 30, 1881 issue]. The tragic event referenced throughout is the {{w|Assassination of James A. Garfield|assassination of President James A. Garfield}}. Interestingly, the article is about how closely studied the incident will or will not be in the future. Garfield's assassination is rarely more than a quick note in a history class, leaving only the "dry and tedious" historians to comb through the details.

The punchline comes from not how insignificant this assassination has come to be viewed, but from Megan and Cueball being baffled by the sheer scope of information contained in the past.

The title text indicates that there is more information about the past than can be researched by the manpower of available historians at this time. For whatever reason, be it lack of funding to carry out research or lack of interested people becoming historians, the facetious solution is to just ignore events of either even or odd numbered years. This would essentially halve the amount of data to go through and the amount of time to go through it, but it would be at the detriment of our understanding of all of the context of said events. The long margins on the first and second panel seem to indicate that there were originally five panels to the comic, but the second and 4th were removed.

==Transcript==
:[In a small panel top left, Cueball walks up to Megan who is sitting on an office chair holding a tablet showing a screen full of (to the reader) unreadable text.]
:Megan: I read this article in an old newspaper, and I can't stop thinking about it.

:[Below is a large panel twice as wide as the first, and much longer. It contains the newspaper clip that Megan talks about. Three sections of the text is in normal black font, the rest is in gray font:]
:'''The public events of the last three months are of the class which will go into its permanent history. We have been living in an atmosphere of history which will be immortally preserved.''' Even the brief series of important dates to be collated for the use of the schoolboys of centuries hence will contain the day of the assassination, and the day of the death of President Garfield. 

:The intermediate events co-related, like the defeat of Roscoe Conkling, will be of great interest, but will scarcely be likely to stand prominently out from the page of history written in 1881. To us who have been the witnesses, so to speak, of the tragic incidents of the times, it seems entirely probable that future generations will eagerly scan every feature of the recent bereavement which the nation has suffered. 

:'''How accurately will future generations know the immense volume of grief and sorrow which has rolled over the land? Will those who come after us ever be able to understand the extent of our loss?''' Is there anything in the first century of our history—even the death of the great Lincoln—which can be used as a parallel? 

:Perhaps a careful reading of the daily papers of the present period may give some future antiquarian a fine idea of the feelings of the nation during the past summer. '''But these journals are so large, so full of detail, that we imagine the coming American will never find time to read the record.''' He must depend on a brief statement, meagerly compiled by sonic dry and tedious historian. 

:::-The Bloomington Daily Pantagraph 
::: September 30,th 1881 

:[The third and final panel is the same size as the first, below and to the right. It contains a zoom in on Cueball and Megan talking.]
:Cueball: Man. The past is so '''''big. '''''
:Megan: How do historians even cope?
:Cueball: I have no idea.
:Megan: I honestly have enough trouble just with the present.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]