The Lord of the Rings timeline is hidden within your Mac
As we crawl ever closer to the December 14th release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Mac Observer reminds us that our Macs are fans of Middle Earth as well. Hidden within OS X's Unix architecture is a FreeBSD calendar easter egg that chronicles the Lord of the Rings saga.
You can view the full tally of fantastical event dates by heading to your Mac's Terminal utility and typing the following:
cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr
Once you hit enter, your computer will spit out a nicely detailed list of major dates associated with Lord of the Rings events. If you're not currently near your Apple desktop or MacBook, we've pasted the full calendar of events below for you to enjoy.
TUAW's resident Middle Earth historian, Steve Sande, pointed out to me that the listed birthday of both Frodo and Bilbo are incorrect on the easter egg's list. According to the original books, both hobbits were born on September 22nd, rather than the 14th as is listed below.
#ifndef _calendar_lotr_
#define _calendar_lotr_
01/05 Fellowship enters Moria
01/09 Fellowship reaches Lorien
01/17 Passing of Gandalf
02/07 Fellowship leaves Lorien
02/17 Death of Boromir
02/20 Meriadoc & Pippin meet Treebeard
02/22 Passing of King Ellesar
02/24 Ents destroy Isengard
02/26 Aragorn takes the Paths of the Dead
03/05 Frodo & Samwise encounter Shelob
03/08 Deaths of Denethor & Theoden
03/18 Destruction of the Ring
03/29 Flowering of the Mallorn
04/04 Gandalf visits Bilbo
04/17 An unexpected party
04/23 Crowning of King Ellesar
05/19 Arwen leaves Lorian to wed King Ellesar
06/11 Sauron attacks Osgiliath
06/13 Bilbo returns to Bag End
06/23 Wedding of Ellesar & Arwen
07/04 Gandalf imprisoned by Saruman
07/24 The ring comes to Bilbo
07/26 Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles
08/03 Funeral of King Theoden
08/29 Saruman enters the Shire
09/10 Gandalf escapes from Orthanc
09/14 Frodo & Bilbo's birthday
09/15 Black riders enter the Shire
09/18 Frodo and company rescued by Bombadil
09/28 Frodo wounded at Weathertop
10/05 Frodo crosses bridge of Mitheithel
10/16 Boromir reaches Rivendell
10/17 Council of Elrond
10/25 End of War of the Ring
11/16 Bilbo reaches the Lonely Mountain
12/05 Death of Smaug
12/16 Fellowship begins Quest
#endif /* !_calendar_lotr_ */
