Need The Lord Of The Rings Timeline? It's On Your Mac

A long history exists in the computing world of hiding "easter eggs," cool little tidbits that are there more for the programmer's indulgence than the actual user, and OS X (indeed, most software Apple has ever produced) has its share of them. Today we find one that traces back to OS X's Unix roots (specifically FreeBSD), and is just for fun... or is it? Perhaps it's serious business, if you're a chosen hobbit.

Either way, your Mac is here to help. Head to the terminal and type the following:

cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr

Don't worry, "cat" is just a command that tells your Mac to display the contents of whatever file path you type next (yes, perhaps that's oversimplifying it for an audience of unix geeks, but bear with me... this is supposed to be fun, remember?).

What you'll see is.. well, fun. And if you're not on a Mac, we'll put the contents here for you. Enjoy!

Contents of /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr:

/*
* Lord Of The Rings
*
* $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/calendar/calendars/calendar.lotr,v 1.2 2003/10/09 00:31:48 grog Exp $
*/
#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_ */