Headlines

Headlines gives you five real newspaper headlines, without dates, and asks for the year each was published. The layout mimics a newspaper: a bold roman headline centered on the page, the name of the paper shown just above it, and nothing else. The answer is set with a slider from 1900 to 2026, with minus and plus buttons to adjust the year precisely, and is locked in with a button that spells out the chosen year in full. The header counts the questions and the points: five dots and a total out of 500.

1. Read the headline and look at the newspaper name printed above it: that name is part of the clue.
2. Drag the 1900-2026 slider, then fine-tune to the exact year with the minus and plus buttons.
3. If you're stuck, open “Stuck? See another headline from the same year” for a second headline from the same year.
4. Lock in your choice with the button that bears your year, then move on to the next headline. There are five.

A headline doesn't just report an event; it conveys a way of writing. Sentence length, vocabulary, the way a country or a technology is named place you in an era before you even identify the event. And when you do recognize the event, the scoring still forces you to pin it down to the exact year.

The scoring system is stated on the home screen, and it's brutally simple: two points lost per year of difference, one hundred points for the exact year. The board confirms the total, 500 points for five headlines, with a counter that stays shown in the top right.

Today's Edition

Five headlines dated to the day, identical for everyone according to the site, with a countdown on the home screen to the next edition.

Previous Edition

A "PLAY A PREVIOUS EDITION" button on the home screen opens past editions.

• The newspaper name at the top of the headline is a clue in itself: a paper has a birth date and sometimes a death date, which already bounds the interval before you read the text.
• Two points per year of difference is small per year but heavy over a decade: the minus and plus buttons exist for that; the slider alone isn't enough to settle on the right year.
• The help offers a second headline from the same year. The board shows no cost for this option, but it doesn't explicitly call it free either: it's up to you whether to try it before locking in a guess.