Here yesterday, gone today.
The Boidem column of precisely two years ago was uploaded on this date. At that
time I acknowledged that I didn't have anything of Boidem-like significance to
celebrate on that day, and that therefore I was simply acknowledging the fact
that I actually uploaded the column on the last day of the month because it was
only then that I finally finished work on the column. But I then added that, in
a very serendipitous fashion, I discovered that it was precisely on that date
(quite honestly to my admitted surprise) that a truly significant
event seemed actually to have taken place. And now, two years later, it seems
that I can (or should) recant, admitting that my surprise was apparently more
accurate than the actual dating of the event.
The Wikipedia is constantly undergoing editorial change. Sometimes for the better,
sometimes less so. I'm not sure whether a measure exists to gauge whether changes
are actually toward the more accurate, or just plain changes (users seem to take
sides more as a matter of conviction than on the basis of any actual evidence). I do admit that
I had my doubts when I read in its pages that it was on September 30, 1452 that
Johann Gutenberg printed his first book. There it was, among the only entries
for September 30 from before the 19th century:
When I returned now, however, to see if perhaps something else of significance
had happened, and been uncovered, on that same day, acknowledgement of Gutenberg's
achievement was conspicuously absent (as was the report on the takeover of Midway
Island):
A
perusal of the history page for that page revealed to me that it was precisely
on this date, one year ago, that someone had determined that (according to the
Wikipedia itself) the report on Gutenberg wasn't historically accurate enough
to leave it in:
Which, though in the interests of historic accuracy is somewhat comforting, also makes this, once again, a rather uneventful day tie-in-wise.
Go to: Still
running it up the flagpole