No absolute year
Pliny the Younger’s eruption letters
Three records from letters LXV and LXVI, read in a historical English translation. Letter LXV gives a day and month for the first cloud sighting, but no year.
Yearline · early release
Pick a year. See what the sources can actually show.
Yearline is an early, deliberately small history of AD 1–2026, one year at a time. Every record quotes its source, says what it does and does not establish, and leaves the unknown visibly unknown.
2,026 years at a glance
Most of the line is still dark. Each mark opens the records behind it. A tick can hold several records; a long bar is one broad approximate range, not dense coverage.
- Placed in a year by a document
- Approximate range
- No absolute date (kept off the line)
- Dark: nothing in this collection yet. See research gaps
- 12 source-attributed records
- 2 document years (1840, 1946)
- 3 approximate ranges
- 3 with no absolute date
- 760 / 800 research cells (date range × region × theme) with no recorded work. See the gaps
Kept off the line
These records have no established year, so they are not placed on the timeline.
Four places to start
Records are grouped by the source they come from.
Document year 1840
The Treaty of Waitangi texts
Three records from the English and Māori texts, grouped under the treaty’s 1840 document date. The two language versions are kept separate, and their equivalence is not assumed.
Document year 1946
Japan’s Constitution
Three provisions from the Japanese text, grouped under 1946, the year of official proclamation. This is document wording with AI working translations, not evidence of practice.
Approximate ranges
Three museum catalogue entries
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s own catalogue descriptions, each with an approximate date range. No object or image was inspected.
Browse by date range
Ranges are for navigation only, not historical eras.
Every record answers three questions
- What does the source say? The statement is attributed to a named source, and the source text it relies on is quoted and labelled: original language, historical translation, statutory transcription or catalogue fields.
- What does it establish? Each record says what it does not prove, right next to what it does.
- How is it dated? A document year, an approximate range, or no absolute date. These are never mixed.