History Main / NewspaperDating

* Deliberately subverted in ''TheLostCrown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure'', because newspapers only say what day of which month it is, not the year. Other documents that do suggest dates by year are wildly contradictory (e.g. a book given as a signed gift in the 1950s, yet published in 1978).

* 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 ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'''s universe-jumping adventure, Batman discovers that he's travelled into the future ''as well as'' across universes from a newspaper.
* ''GIJoe'' also does it to confirm they haven't time-traveled, with the same result, in their universe-jumping adventure in the original series.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{X-Men}}'', when Bishop time-travels he simply picks up a newspaper and reads the date off the front page.

* This trope is how the protagonists of ''Series/FlashForward2009'' find out that the eponymous flash forwards are supposed to show the future.
%%* As well as in its modern incarnation, ''Series/{{Journeyman}}''.

** Toward the end of ''Methuselah's Children'', the characters have returned to Earth in their stolen starship, but don't want to land until they know how much time has passed since they fled an oppressive government. One of the characters, Andy Libby, determines the approximate date by examining the relative positions of the planets in the Solar System. (75 years have passed.)

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein, ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove''. Lazarus Long travels back in time and reads a newspaper to learn the current date: August 1, 1916. This is about three years earlier than he intended to arrive, since he'd planned to skip UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.

* Toward the end of Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Methuselah's Children'', the characters have returned to Earth in their stolen starship, but don't want to land until they know how much time has passed since they fled an oppressive government. One of the characters, Andy Libby, determines the approximate date by examining the relative positions of the planets in the Solar System. (75 years have passed.)

* 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 [[http://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]]

** In "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", the TARDIS crew discover they are in 2164 (or later) from a calendar in an abandoned warehouse.
** "The Chase" sees a variant of this trope. Ian & Barbara find out they’re (near enough) home by checking the windscreen of the nearest parked car to find its tax disc expires on New Year’s Eve 1965. (This is referenced in ''Film/AnAdventureInSpaceAndTime'' when the audience is shown that it is 1966 by displaying a car's tax disc.)
** In "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 "Rise of the Cybermen", the TARDIS crashes and Mickey uses this method to determine that they have landed in modern London; it then transpires that they've passed into a parallel universe by accident.
** Also used in "Daleks in Manhattan" where the Doctor attempts to work out the date from how complete the Empire State building is, whilst Martha picks up a newspaper from a bench behind them.
** Kathy Nightingale does this in "Blink", though it's as much to convince her that she time-traveled at all as to determine the date.
** In "The Unicorn and the Wasp", the Doctor figures out what year it is by other clues, but the exact date turns out to be important.
** In "The Unquiet Dead", the Doctor uses a paper to determine that they are not, in fact, in 1860 Naples, but rather 1869 [[AliensInCardiff Cardiff]]. Rose doesn't care until she hears [[SelfDeprecation that last bit]]. "Right..."
** In "Human Nature", a teacher called John Smith wakes up from a strange dream in which he's a doctor caught up in adventures in the far-flung future of 2007. His maid, who just happens to resemble his companion in that dream, assures him that it's 1913 and hands over the daily paper as proof.
%%* Happens around OnceAnEpisode in ''Series/QuantumLeap''.

* 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).
* 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]]

* 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.
* This trope is how the protagonists of ''Series/FlashForward2009'' find out that the eponymous flash forwards are supposed to show the future.
* This shows up in the ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' episode "That '70s Episode", when the protagonists time-travel [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin back to the 1970s]].
* ''Series/{{Angel}}''. After spending sixteen years in a hell dimension, Holtz looks at a newspaper to see what year it is and is shocked to find that [[YearInsideHourOutside only days have passed since he left]].

[[quoteright:280:[[Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/NewspaperDateDrMN-scaled.jpg]]]]

* The protagonist of ''The Big Lie'' from 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.

* ''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]].

** After traveling forward in time from the 1930's, Henry Winchester (Dean's grandfather) reads the registration on the Impala. "2013? My god! I guess the [[MayanDoomsday Mayans were wrong]]."

** 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' did this to confirm that they ''hadn't'' time traveled when they went to an alternate universe containing the Justice Guild, and ''[[JusticeLeagueUnlimited Unlimited]]'' did it in "The Once and Future Thing, Part One: Weird Western Tales".

* In ''Film/TimeAfterTime'', after H. G. Wells demonstrates his time-machine to his skeptical 20th Century girlfriend by taking her a few days into the future, she confirms that his time-machine works when she sees a newspaper dated a few days later. [[spoiler:She then reads about her own murder on the front page.]]

* This trope is how the protagonists of ''[[FlashForward2009 Flash Forward]]'' find out that the eponymous flash forwards are supposed to show the future.

* In a variation in ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'', the four find out that they're in an alternate New York, “New Zork,” in 1954, from a license plate. Given [[TheBeatles what they did in New York had taken place in 1964]], they feel pretty safe in wandering around without fear of being mobbed. That is, until Ringo, lagging behind the others, plucks a newspaper out of the trash and finds to his horror that in this universe, the “Beagles” have ''just'' arrived in the city.... [[HilarityEnsues Cue the ensuing of hilarity.]]

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein, ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove''. Lazarus Long travels back in time and reads a newspaper to learn the current date: August 1, 1916. This is about three years earlier than he intended to arrive, since he'd planned to skip WorldWarI.

* A more short term version appears in ''MahouSenseiNegima.'' [[spoiler:Chao]] sends Negi and his friends a week into the future to the point that she has already won the battle. They realize something is up (the massive SchoolFestival has disappeared), but they don't figure out what happened until Yue sees the date on a newspaper. Chisame finds out separately over the internet.

* In ''Film/MidnightRun'' the second not-so-bright bounty hunter is trying to sell out Charles Grodin's character to his mob bosses and uses a picture of the day's paper, taken in the bathroom of the motel where he has Grodin's character hidden. Unfortunately for him, the towels for the motel, with it's name plainly seen, are hanging on a rack in the background.

%%* ''{{Film/Terminator}}''.

* In ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters: Future Perfect'', 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 ''ProfessorLaytonAndTheUnwoundFuture'', Layton first realizes how far into the future he is when he finds a newspaper and realizes that the date is 10 years into the future.

* Inverted in ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2149801/1/Out_of_Time Out of Time]]'' when [[RurouniKenshin Kenshin]] from the revolution ends up time traveling twelve years into the future (during the main series). While Sano has figured out what's going on, Kenshin isn't convinced (and is rather intent on killing Sano, believing he's a spy). Sano's barely able to get him to look at an old discarded newspaper, which wins him over.

[[folder:Comics]]

* Subverted in a 1993 ''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.

[[folder:Fanfic]]