the reasoning behind them is explained in the footnotes.
• Where a date isn’t established on screen, we have also included the dates suggested by others who have compiled timelines or listed dates given in the series. Several similar works to this have been attempted, and we have listed the most relevant in the Bibliography.
• It’s been assumed that historical events take place at the same time and for the same reasons as they did in “real history”, unless specifically contradicted by the television series. Unless given reason to think otherwise, we assume that the Doctor is telling the truth about meeting historical figures, and that his historical analysis is correct. (It has, however, been established that the Doctor is fallible and / or an incorrigible name-dropper.) When there’s a reference in our footnotes to “science”, “scientists”, “history” or “historians”, unless stated otherwise it means scholars and academics from the real world, not the Doctor Who universe (they are usually invoked when Doctor Who ’s version of science or events strays a distance from ours).
• Information given is usually taken literally and at face value, unless there’s strong reason to think that the person giving it is lying or mistaken. Clearly, if an expert like the Doctor is talking about something he knows a great deal about, we can probably trust the information more than some bystander’s vague remark.
• Ahistory ’s version of Earth’s future history is generally one of steady progress, and as such stories featuring similar themes and concepts tend to be lumped together - say, intergalactic travel, isolated colonies, humanoid robots and so on. If the technology, transportation or weaponry seen in story A is more advanced than in story B, then we might suggest that story A is set in the future of story B. We also assume that throughout future centuries, humans age at the same rate (unless told otherwise), so their life spans don’t alter too dramatically, etc. A “lifetime” in the year 4000 is still about one hundred years.
• All dates, again unless specifically stated otherwise, work from our Gregorian calendar, and all are “AD”. It is assumed that the system of leap years will remain the same in the future. For convenience, all documents use our system of dating, even those of alien civilisations. The “present” of the narrative is now, so if an event happened “two hundred years ago”, it happened in the early nineteenth century. On a number of occasions we are told that a specific date takes place on the wrong day: in The War Machines , 16th July, 1966, is a Monday, but it really occurred on a Saturday.
• We assume that a “year” is an Earth year of 365 days, even when an alien is speaking, unless this is specifically contradicted. This also applies to terms such as “Space Year” ( Genesis of the Daleks ), “light year” (which is used as a unit of time in The Savages and possibly Terror of the Autons ) and “cycle” (e.g. Zamper ).
• If an event is said to take place “fifty years ago”, we take it to mean exactly fifty years ago, unless a more precise date is given elsewhere or it refers to a known historical event. If an event occurs in the distant past or the far future, we tend to round up: Image of the Fendahl is set in about 1977, the Fifth Planet was destroyed “twelve million years” before. So, we say this happened in “12,000,000 BC”, not “11,998,023 BC”. When an event takes place an undefined number of “centuries”, “millennia” or “millions of years” before or after a story, we arbitrarily set a date.
• A “generation” is assumed to be twenty-five years, as per the Doctor’s definition in Four to Doomsday . A “couple” of years is always two years, a “few” is less than “several” which is less than “many”, with “some” taken to be an arbitrary or unknown number. A “billion” is generally the
• Where a date isn’t established on screen, we have also included the dates suggested by others who have compiled timelines or listed dates given in the series. Several similar works to this have been attempted, and we have listed the most relevant in the Bibliography.
• It’s been assumed that historical events take place at the same time and for the same reasons as they did in “real history”, unless specifically contradicted by the television series. Unless given reason to think otherwise, we assume that the Doctor is telling the truth about meeting historical figures, and that his historical analysis is correct. (It has, however, been established that the Doctor is fallible and / or an incorrigible name-dropper.) When there’s a reference in our footnotes to “science”, “scientists”, “history” or “historians”, unless stated otherwise it means scholars and academics from the real world, not the Doctor Who universe (they are usually invoked when Doctor Who ’s version of science or events strays a distance from ours).
• Information given is usually taken literally and at face value, unless there’s strong reason to think that the person giving it is lying or mistaken. Clearly, if an expert like the Doctor is talking about something he knows a great deal about, we can probably trust the information more than some bystander’s vague remark.
• Ahistory ’s version of Earth’s future history is generally one of steady progress, and as such stories featuring similar themes and concepts tend to be lumped together - say, intergalactic travel, isolated colonies, humanoid robots and so on. If the technology, transportation or weaponry seen in story A is more advanced than in story B, then we might suggest that story A is set in the future of story B. We also assume that throughout future centuries, humans age at the same rate (unless told otherwise), so their life spans don’t alter too dramatically, etc. A “lifetime” in the year 4000 is still about one hundred years.
• All dates, again unless specifically stated otherwise, work from our Gregorian calendar, and all are “AD”. It is assumed that the system of leap years will remain the same in the future. For convenience, all documents use our system of dating, even those of alien civilisations. The “present” of the narrative is now, so if an event happened “two hundred years ago”, it happened in the early nineteenth century. On a number of occasions we are told that a specific date takes place on the wrong day: in The War Machines , 16th July, 1966, is a Monday, but it really occurred on a Saturday.
• We assume that a “year” is an Earth year of 365 days, even when an alien is speaking, unless this is specifically contradicted. This also applies to terms such as “Space Year” ( Genesis of the Daleks ), “light year” (which is used as a unit of time in The Savages and possibly Terror of the Autons ) and “cycle” (e.g. Zamper ).
• If an event is said to take place “fifty years ago”, we take it to mean exactly fifty years ago, unless a more precise date is given elsewhere or it refers to a known historical event. If an event occurs in the distant past or the far future, we tend to round up: Image of the Fendahl is set in about 1977, the Fifth Planet was destroyed “twelve million years” before. So, we say this happened in “12,000,000 BC”, not “11,998,023 BC”. When an event takes place an undefined number of “centuries”, “millennia” or “millions of years” before or after a story, we arbitrarily set a date.
• A “generation” is assumed to be twenty-five years, as per the Doctor’s definition in Four to Doomsday . A “couple” of years is always two years, a “few” is less than “several” which is less than “many”, with “some” taken to be an arbitrary or unknown number. A “billion” is generally the
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