History Main / NewspaperDating

* Played with in ''Series/RedDwarf'', "Backwards" - the date on the newspaper was 3991, but by that point Kryten had realized that everything was backwards, so the actual year was 1993.

** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': In "Spectre of the Gun", Captain Kirk finds a copy of the Tombstone Epitaph dated October 26th, 1881. On Website/YouTube [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP03eWhP-vI here]], starting at 5:30.[[note]]On Blu-Ray, you can read the articles. They're not from 1881. Given that they're not ''really'' in the Old West, this kinda works.[[/note]]
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "Time's Arrow: Part I", Data does this to tell both where and when he is by finding a copy of the San Francisco Register dated August 13, 1893.
** Averted in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In "Future's End", the ship time traveled back to Earth in 1996, which they find out just by doing an astrometric reading. And in "Fury", having travelled back to a past Voyager, Kes just asks the ship's computer for the date.

** In the episode "In The Beginning", Dean realizes he's been sent back in time by the angel Castiel when he goes into a diner and sees the date on the newspaper of the man next to him (who happens to be his father). He also does it when he is raised from the dead in "Lazarus Rising" due to time flowing much slower in Hell than on Earth.

%%* Used in novels 5 through 7 of Creator/StephenKing's Franchise/TheDarkTower series

TechnologyMarchesOn, and while they continue to be printed, it is still to be seen how long newspapers will be available to check this in runs to the future, what with the prevalence of people reading the news on their smartphone on their way to work.

* In "Against the Current" the main character starts drifting backwards through time from 2008 with his Prius, and regularly checks newspapers to determine how far he's gone -- first 1983, then 1973, then 1971 and so on.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E4TheEnemyOfTheWorld "The Enemy of the World"]], Jamie finds out he's in 2018 by looking at the expiration date of the tax disc on the helicopter that's just picked him up.

** In "Vanishing Act", Trevor [=McPhee=] realizes that he has travelled ten years into the future when he sees issues of ''Magazine/TimeMagazine'' and ''Life'' dated 1959.

* A variation occurs in ''Film/FieldOfDreams'', where Ray figures out he's walked back into 1979 by checking the registration date on a Minnesota license plate.

* The season 3 epsisode of ''Series/TeenWolf'', "Motel California" has a cold open that shows a flashback to 1975, when an Argent relative checked into the featured motel of the episode and killed himself before transforming into a werewolf.
** Newspapers and the dates they display are a recurring theme of this episode, tempting the audience to believe that this episode and the motel itself may actually feature a connection to time-travel and bringing to the table the possibility that Lydia's powers give her the ability to sense death throughout all of time (evidenced by the fact that she heard 2 deaths in the room next door, when the deaths occurred prior to the group's arrival at the motel).

!!Examples

* Subverted in a 1993 ''ComicBook/DylanDog'' storyline, where the eponymous hero wakes up with amnesia in a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic future]]. It's only near the end of the story that he finds, in the ruins of a library, a collection of (very aged) newspapers running up to 2001, the year civilization ended. Dylan deduces he must be in the early 21st century... Then, not three panels later, he reads on a solar-powered clock it's August 4th, 2560

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* This shows up in the ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' episode "That '70s Episode", when the protagonists time-travel [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin back to the 1970s]].

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Spectre of the Gun", Captain Kirk finds a copy of the Tombstone Epitaph dated October 26th, 1881. On Website/YouTube [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP03eWhP-vI here]], starting at 5:30.[[note]]On Blu-Ray, you can read the articles. They're not from 1881. Given that they're not ''really'' in the Old West, this kinda works.[[/note]]

* An episode of ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' has a variation. A group think they have been transported to an alien planet, but gradually figure out they are in the distant future. A look at the expiration date of a discarded candy bar wrapper confirms this. (By no means accurate, but close enough for their purposes).

* ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'' pulls a variation in the first episode, with Sougo checking the expiration date on a milk carton to confirm that he's really gone back in time to 2017.

* In ''VideoGame/TimeSplittersFuturePerfect'', Cortez picks up a photo of the BigBad. The MissionControl proposes a complex scheme to determine when/where to send Cortez to, regarding the building heights and designs. Cortez waits through the speech, then reads out the date, time and place from the back of the photo.

* In ''VideoGame/FairyFencerF'', in at least two of the three [[spoiler:alternate timelines]], the party discovers that [[spoiler:they've traveled in time]] thanks to this. Humorously, in the [[spoiler:Goddess timeline]], Fang has no idea what Eryn is trying to convey [[spoiler:when she shows him the newspaper at first, thinking she just dredged up an old copy of the newspaper from somewhere.]]

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9624663/2/Black-Fortunes Black Fortunes]]'' Harry spots a newspaper in passing and is dismayed to realize that he's back in 1975.

* Played with in ''Literature/ToSayNothingOfTheDog'' by Creator/ConnieWillis. The main character needs to find out the exact date he landed in order to correctly fulfill his SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong mission. He finds a newspaper, but doesn't realize that it's several days old...

* In the 1981 Afterschool Special ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243434/ My Mother was Never a Kid]]'' Victoria Martin, after getting into an argument with her mother, seemingly travels through time during a subway trip, and meets her mother as a teenager she only confirms her travel by finding a newspaper dated 1944. She comes to realize that she and her mother are very much the same. In the end we find out [[spoiler: it was all just a dream]].

* Kyon uses this method at one point during ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' to figure out what year he is in [[spoiler: after using Nagato's escape program]].

* The protagonist of ''The Big Lie'' from Creator/ImageComics (a book about the events of 9/11) does this at the start of the story, discovering she has arrived several days earlier than she intended.
* Subverted in a 1993 ''ComicBook/DylanDog'' storyline, where the eponymous hero wakes up with amnesia in a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic future]]. It's only near the end of the story that he finds, in the ruins of a library, a collection of (very aged) newspapers running up to 2001, the year civilization ended. Dylan deduces he must be in the early 21st century... Then, not three panels later, he reads on a solar-powered clock it's August 4th, 2560

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9624663/2/Black-Fortunes Black Fortunes]]'' Harry spots a newspaper in passing and is dismayed to realize that he's back in 1975.

* In ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'', Joe (and the viewer) finds out what year he's in by seeing a magazine cover[[note]](''Hot Naked Chicks & World Report'')[[/note]] dated 2505 (which he thinks is a misprint), and then a receipt that confirms the date on the magazine.

* The attempt at newspaper dating in ''Film/MenInBlack3'' doesn't work because the guy in the elevator keeps shifting the date on the paper out of J's line of sight. J finally just asks him WhatYearIsIt.
* A variation occurs in ''Film/FieldOfDreams,'' where Ray figures out he's walked back into 1979 by checking the registration date on a Minnesota license plate.
* In ''Film/FiftyFirstDates'', a character with short-term memory loss doesn't know what year it is, until she sees a newspaper. This is the result of her father arranging for hundreds of copies of the newspaper from the day of her accident, to keep her from having to deal with it for as long as possible

* Played with in ''Literature/ToSayNothingOfTheDog'' by Creator/ConnieWillis. The main character needs to find out the exact date he landed in order to correctly fulfill his SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong mission. He finds a newspaper, but doesn't realize that it's several days old...
** Connie Willis does this again in ''Blackout''. A time traveler finds half a newspaper and tries to use it to figure out the date. First it turns out to be the half that doesn't have the date printed on it, so he has to use his knowledge of history to correlate the stories in the paper with the date. After he manages to figure it out, he starts talking to people, and through a series of conversational missteps realizes that the paper is again several days older than he thought it was.

* Kyon does this in the novel ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', in which he finds himself on a time traveling trip. Upon arriving in one time period, he considers asking WhatYearIsThis, but swiftly discards the idea after realizing how demented he would look to others and instead heads for a convenience store to check the newspapers.

* Done straight in Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/JohnnyAndTheBomb''.
* Used in novels 5 through 7 of Creator/StephenKing's Franchise/TheDarkTower series
* Variation in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': Jake, while trapped in a post-apocalyptic New York City, tries to determine when humanity lost by the dates in a bombed-out magazine stand.
* ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'' has what might be considered a non-time-travel aversion, in that Phileas Fogg apparently never checks the date on a newspaper after crossing the Pacific. Had he done so he would have realised that [[spoiler:he had gained a day after crossing the International Date Line]].
* This appears whenever Bobby arrives on First Earth (Earth in the year 1937) in ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure''.

** Another take on this trope is the Doctor (who has SeenItAll) telling the date from the technology around him, e.g. in "Kill the Moon".
-->'''Courtney:''' This isn't the moon. Where are we?
-->'''The Doctor:''' On a recycled space shuttle. 2049, judging by that prototype version of the Bennett oscillator.

* Subverted in a 1997 episode of ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun''. Dick, who already thinks he's losing his mind, is in a doctor's waiting room filled with, of course, old magazines. After rifling through them, he panics, declaring "Oh my god, it's 1994!"

* The season 3 epsisode of [[TeenWolf]] Motel California has a cold open that shows a flashback to 1975, when an Argent relative checked into the featured motel of the episode and killed himself before transforming into a werewolf.

* The season 3 epsisode of [[Series/TeenWolf]] Motel California has a cold open that shows a flashback to 1975, when an Argent relative checked into the featured motel of the episode and killed himself before transforming into a werewolf.

* Kyon does this in the novel ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', in which he finds himself on a time traveling trip. Upon arriving in one time period, he considers asking WhatYearIsThis, but swiftly discards the idea after [[GenreSavvy realizing]] how demented he would look to others and instead heads for a convenience store to check the newspapers.