What Year is it Today: The System

We sing and dance with the ghosts. ​Time is a realm of the death and ​our minds are eternally haunted by ​the question: what was it like to be ​alive yesterday, last year or ​centuries ago?

In Another Time is your guide of ​choice through this haunted house ​of the past. The maps on our ​website are designed for ​transcendent travel; back in time ​through the best books, movies & ​music, or forward in space to the ​best vintage hotspots - exploring all ​artifacts that can enchant and ​inspire us.

To be useful as a guide, practicality ​is paramount and a simple system ​required. So here it is: A certain ​date on the calendar is a certain ​year in the past, or decade or ​century depending on its proximity ​to the present. From New Year’s ​Day's big bang we journey forward ​across eons, epochs, millennia, ​centuries, decades and years as we ​close in on the present.

Curious to know what we'll highlight out of the past in the future? Sign up to the What Year is it Today? newsletter.

30th of June

1900

Letter from an Unkown Woman (1948)

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The film is set during the Belle Époque at the turn of the 20th century. While in Bois de Boulogne, Honoré Lachaille remarks that in Paris, marriage is not the sole option for wealthy young bon vivants like his nephew Gaston, who is bored with life. Gaston does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter, precocious, carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi's mother (a singer who is heard but never seen onscreen) leaves her care mostly to Madame Alvarez.

1900s

29th of June

1897

A doctor (Jean Gabin), an artist (Daniel Gélin) and a madam (Madeleine Renaud) appear in vignettes from stories by Guy de Maupassant.

28th of June

1894

An Officer and a Spy (2019)

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In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, captain in the French army, is found guilty of high treason for passing military secrets to the German Empire. He is condemned to exile on Devil's Island; his affair triggers an echo in France since Dreyfus is Jewish. One year later, officer Georges Picquart, Dreyfus' former teacher, is appointed head of the secret service section in the French army (Deuxième Bureau). The man, despite alleged anti-Semitic sentiments, is aware that the trial against Dreyfus was summary and biased by Dreyfus' Jewish origins. Noticing some irregularities in the dossier of the affair, he decides to conduct an investigation to verify Dreyfus' guilt. Picquart discovers that the so-called bordereau, the document that ostensibly proves his guilt, was not written by Dreyfus, as the graphologist Alphonse Bertillon had claimed, but by another soldier: Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. According to Picquart, he is the real spy, but the evidence has been prejudiced or even falsified to the detriment of Dreyfus.

27th of June

1891

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

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In the 1890s, brigands Purvis and Buddy encounter a Native American burial site. They are ambushed, and Buddy is killed while Purvis escapes. Purvis reaches a nearby town, Bright Hope, and buries his loot; seeing this, Deputy Chicory reports him to Sheriff Franklin Hunt, who interrogates then shoots Purvis (who claims his name is Buddy) in the leg when he attempts to escape.

26th of June

1888

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A train arrives at the Old West town of "Flagstone". A man with a harmonica on a thong about his neck alights and faces three gunfighters who are waiting for him, killing all three. Their leader, an outlaw called Frank, is working as a hired gunman for the railroad tycoon Morton, who is trying to acquire land owned by Brett McBain's family.

25th of June

1885

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

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In Bridger's Wells, Nevada in 1885, two cowboys, Art Croft and Gil Carter, hitch up their horses and enter Darby's Saloon. There, it is learned that a rancher, Larry Kinkaid, has been murdered. The townspeople immediately form a large posse to pursue the murderers. Art and Gil join. Davies, fearing a lynching, also joins, hoping he can prevent such an occurrence. Major Tetley, dressed in an old Civil War uniform, assumes leadership. His son, Gerald, comes with him. Soon, news arrives that three men with cattle bearing Kinkaid's brand have just entered Bridger's Pass.

1882

King Solomon's Mines (1937)

In 1882, Irish dream chaser Patrick "Patsy" O'Brien and his daughter Kathy have failed to strike it rich in the diamond mines of Kimberley, South Africa (then the Cape Colony). They persuade a reluctant Allan Quartermain to drive them to the coast in his wagon.

1880s

We're in the 19th Century and on the

23rd of June

1879

it's

Zulu (1964)

In January 1879, in the aftermath of the crushing defeat of a 1,300-man British column by the Zulu armies at Isandlwana, Zulu tribesmen scavenge the battlefield and collect rifles and ammunition from the dead soldiers. At a mass Zulu marriage ceremony witnessed by missionary Otto Witt and his daughter Margareta, Zulu King Cetshwayo is informed of the great victory; Witt and Margareta flee when they realise that the Zulus are going to attack Witt's missionary station at Rorke's Drift in Natal, which a company of the British Army's 24th Regiment of Foot are using as a supply depot and hospital for British forces in Zululand.

We're in the 19th Century and on the

22nd of June

1876

it's

The Last Samurai (2003)

In 1876, former U.S. Army Captain Nathan Algren, a skilled soldier who has become a bitter alcoholic traumatized by the atrocities he committed and witnessed during the American Indian Wars, is approached by his former commanding officer Colonel Bagley. Bagley asks him to train the newly created Imperial Japanese Army for a Japanese businessman, Omura, who intends to use the army to suppress a samurai-headed rebellion against Japan's new emperor. Despite his hatred of Bagley, the impoverished Algren takes the job for the money. He is accompanied to Japan by his old friend, Sergeant Zebulon Gant. Upon arriving, Algren meets Simon Graham, a British translator knowledgeable about the samurai.

We're in the 19th Century and on the

21st of June

1873

it's

Cannibal! The Musical (1993)

In 1873, Packer was part of a group of miners in Bingham Canyon, Utah who hear of new prospects in Breckenridge. Together, the small group decide to travel together into Colorado Territory. Packer is appointed as the replacement for the original guide, since he claimed knowledge of the area. He and Liane set off on what Packer estimates will be a three-week journey with a party of five miners: Shannon Wilson Bell, James Humphrey, Frank Miller, George Noon and Israel Swan.

We're in the 19th Century and on the

20th of June

it's

1870

News of the World (2020)

In 1870, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a former Confederate officer who served in the 3rd Texas Infantry, makes a meager living traveling from town to town in Texas and reading newspaper stories to local residents for an admission fee of ten cents. After departing Wichita Falls, Kidd comes across an overturned wagon on the road and finds the driver, a black freedman, had been lynched. He also finds a young white girl who only speaks Kiowa and wearing a Kiowa dress and boots. Kidd learns from the girl's paperwork that she is Johanna Leonberger, who had been kidnapped and adopted by Kiowa six years earlier.

1870s

We're in the 19th Century and on the

19th of June

it's

1867

Old Yeller (1957)

In the late 1860s, Jim Coates leaves his family—wife Katie, teenage son Travis, and small son Arliss—to sell cattle in Kansas. While Jim is away, Travis sets off to work in the cornfield, where he encounters a Black Mouth Cur he names "Old Yeller", as "yeller" is a dialect pronunciation of "yellow" and the dog's bark resembles a human yell. Travis unsuccessfully tries to shoo the dog away, while Arliss defends him. Yeller's habit of stealing meat from smokehouses and robbing hens' nests does not endear him to Travis, but his mother agrees with the idea of Arliss having a dog.

We're in the 19th Century and on the

18th of June

1864

it's

The Beguiled (2017)

Martha Farnsworth runs a girls school in Virginia during the Civil War. By 1864, almost all of the students, teachers, and slaves have left. In addition to Farnsworth herself, only five students and one teacher, Edwina Morrow, remain. While out in the woods searching for mushrooms, Amy, a pupil, comes across John McBurney, a corporal in the Union Army who was wounded in the leg during battle, and has since deserted. Amy brings McBurney to the school where he falls unconscious. The women lock McBurney in one of the rooms while Miss Farnsworth tends to his wounds. All the women and girls in the school are immediately fascinated by the handsome man.

We're in the 19th Century and on the

17th of June

it's

In 1861, on the eve of the American Civil War, Scarlett O'Hara lives at Tara, her family's cotton plantation in Georgia, with her parents, two sisters, and their many black slaves. Scarlett is deeply attracted to Ashley Wilkes and learns he is to be married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. At an engagement party the next day at Ashley's home, Twelve Oaks, a nearby plantation, Scarlett makes an advance on Ashley but is rebuffed; however, she catches the attention of another guest, Rhett Butler. The party is disrupted by news of President Lincoln's call for volunteers to fight the South, and the Southern men rush to enlist...

We're in the 19th Century and on the

16th of June

it's

1858

Django Unchained (2012)

In 1858 Texas, brothers Ace and Dicky Speck drive a group of shackled black slaves on foot. Among them is Django, sold off and separated from his wife Broomhilda von Shaft, a house slave who speaks German and English. They are stopped by Dr. King Schultz, a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter seeking to buy Django for his knowledge of the three outlaw Brittle brothers, overseers at the plantation of Django's previous owner and for whom Schultz has a warrant....

We're in the 19th Century and on the

15th of June

it's

Dr. Austin Sloper is a doctor and resident of a large house on New York's Washington Square. His wife dies in childbirth, leaving a daughter, Catherine, to be raised by her father. As a child, Catherine is overweight, clumsy, and untalented; however, she is also a sweet, affectionate child. She adores her father and tries hard to please him, but he considers her a disappointment and treats her with ironic condescension. His thoughts are still much occupied with his beloved wife and with a promising son who died before Catherine was born, and he privately – but bitterly – resents his only surviving child for causing his wife's death. Now the 1850s, Sloper invites Catherine's widowed aunt, the incurably foolish Lavinia Penniman, to live at Washington Square as a chaperone for Catherine.

We're in the 19th Century and on the

14th of June

it's

Mexican War veteran Jeremiah Johnson takes up the life of a mountain man, supporting himself in the Rocky Mountains as a trapper. His first winter in mountain country is difficult, and he has a run-in with Paints-His-Shirt-Red, a chief of the Crow tribe....

1850s

We're in the 19th Century and on the

13th of June

1849

it's

The Widown of Saint Pierre (2000)

On the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon in 1849, two rescued sailors get drunk and kill a man. Arrested, tried and sentenced, one dies in custody but the other, Néel, has to wait for his execution because the little islands have no guillotine or executioner.

1840s

In another time

In Another Time explores the past with imagination. Our main sources on this journey are movies, music & literature, embracing the flight of fancy over factmongering and the mode of myth over historical puritanism.