Arlington National Cemetery, Çatalhöyük and Constantinople
How far apart were they really?
How to read this
Two dates are already on the timeline. A third is in your hand. Put it where you think it goes, then commit.
A marker for the true date then travels into place, and the gap between yours and it is how far out you were. Every row says what its date measures, because they are not all alike: a person is a lifespan, a mission is a launch, a building is the year it is dated to.
Once enough people have played, the crowd’s marker joins them, showing where most people put it. Those are people who chose to play a game about time, so read it as what history enthusiasts think rather than as what everyone thinks.
Most people place things too recently. The further back something is, the more it collapses toward everything else back there. It is called the telescoping effect, and it is what this is about.