More Red Letter Dates

The most famous red letter date in the history of time travel is November 5, 1955 from Back to the Future.

Lesser known BTTF dates include:

• January 1, 1885 (Doc’s trip to the Old West)
• September 2, 1885 (Marty’s trip to the Old West)
• November 12, 1955 (Enchantment Under The Sea / Lighting vs the Clock Tower / Biff gives himself the Sports Almanac)
• October 26, 1985 (The day it all started)
• October 21, 2015 (Marty & Jennifer’s trip to the future)
• October 26, 2015 (Doc’s first trip to the future, assuming “30 is a nice round number”)

In Timely Persuasion many of the actual time travel dates are vague — but there are some key red letter dates based on the narrator’s memories or bits of musical trivia:

• October 12, 1969 (WKNR DJ Russ Gibb starts the “Paul is Dead” rumor)
• September 18, 1970 (Jimi Hendrix found dead)
• April 7, 1994 (Eve of discovery of Kurt Cobain’s body; Tom Grant & Dylan Carlson search house)
• April 12, 2000 (Napster/Metallica copyright suit)
• September 10, 2001 (Trying to save sister)

As long as we’re on the subject, let’s extend the red letter dates to include some of my other favorite time travel tales:

• September 13, 1956 (Sam Beckett’s first Quantum Leap)
• September 9, 1958 (Destination of the time portal in 11/22/63)
• February 22, 1972 (Mickey Wade’s pills bring him here in Expiration Date)
• September 23, 1977 (Clare first meets Henry in The Time Traveler’s Wife)
• October 2, 1988 (Jet Engine & Frank the Rabbit travel back to this date in Donnie Darko)
• October 18, 1988 (Jeff Winston dies and starts replaying in Replay)
• October 26, 1991 (Henry first meets Clare in The Time Traveler’s Wife)
• December 12, 1996 (James Cole witnesses the death of his future self at the airport in 12 Monkeys)
• November 5, 1999 (Jacob travels back to visit Peter at the cafe in Trickshot)
• March 16, 2005 (Uncle Jim visits Danny Deakins in The Man Who Folded Himself)
• October 23, 2030 (The date of the future visions seen in the novel Flashforward)