1141: Two Years

2012-11-30T05:25:16Z

66.57.49.25: it's 2012, not 2011!

{{comic
| number = 1141
| date = November 30, 2012
| title = Two Years
| image = two years.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = She won the first half of all our chemo Scrabble games, but then her IV drugs started kicking in and I *dominated*.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic marks the second year of [[Randall Munroe]]'s wife's long [[Emotion|battle with cancer]].

==Transcript==
:

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Cancer]]

1140: Calendar of Meaningful Dates

2012-11-30T05:24:53Z

66.57.49.25: this is 2012, not 2011...

{{comic
| number = 1140
| date = November 28, 2012
| title = Calendar of Meaningful Dates
| image = calendar of meaningful dates.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = In months other than September, the 11th is mentioned substantially less often than any other date. It's been that way since long before 9/11 and I have no idea why.
}}

==Explanation==
The calendar used in the comic is the standard {{w|Gregorian calendar}} used by most of western civilization. The comic looks at the frequencies of certain dates appearing in English writings indexed in the {{w|Google Ngram Viewer}}.

Some dates are more (or less) frequently mentioned because they have a special significance. For example:
* January 1 is {{w|New Year's Day|New Year's Day}}.
* February 14 is {{w|Valentine's Day}}.
* February 29 only exists during {{w|Leap year|leap years}}.
* March 15 is the {{w|Ides of March}}.
* April 1 is {{w|April Fools' Day|April Fools' Day}}.
* April 15 is {{w|Tax Day|US Individual Income Tax return filing day}}.
* May 1 is {{w|International Workers' Day|International Workers' Day}}, or {{w|May Day|May Day}}.
* June 4 is the {{w|June Fourth Incident}}, or the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
* June 30 is the end of the {{w|Fiscal Year| fiscal year}} for most American states and local governments.
* July 1 is {{w|Canada Day}}.
* July 4 is {{w|Independence Day (United States)|US Independence Day}}.
* September 11 is the date of the {{w|September 11 attacks|2001 terrorist attacks}} in New York City and Washington DC.
* October 31 is {{w|Halloween}}.
* November 9 is {{w|Kristallnacht}} (1938), believed by historians to be the beginning of {{w|The Holocaust}}. It is also the end of the {{w|German empire}} (1918), the end of the {{w|Beer Hall Putsch}} (1923) and the fall of the {{w|Berlin Wall}} (1989).
* December 7 is the date of the {{w|Attack on Pearl Harbor|1941 attack on Pearl Harbor}}.
* December 25 is {{w|Christmas|Christmas}}.
* December 31 is {{w|New Year's Eve|New Year's Eve}}.

In addition, the first of each month is generally more mentioned than others, perhaps because such dates are markers of a new month and may be used as landmark dates or deadlines. Similarly, the final day of each month is commonly a deadline day. Other dates, such as the 11th of each month (as noted in the title text), for example, have correlations which don't appear to be for any immediately obvious reason.

==Transcript==
:'''Calendar of Meaningful Dates'''
:Each date's size represents how often it is referred to by name (e.g. "October 17th") in English-language books since 2000
:(Source: Google ngrams corpus)
:[A regular Gregorian calendar laid out in a grid, with some numbers larger than others.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Charts]]

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1141: Two Years

1140: Calendar of Meaningful Dates