While simultaneously moving forward and expanding on the web (very futuristic, right?) the New York Times is also taking a minute to hearken back to the old days, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and you couldn't tell the difference between men and women. Ok, maybe not quite that far back, but, the New York Times is putting articles online (in crappy PDF form) which date back to 1851.

1851! That's like, before Bill Keller was even born!

With original reporting on Abraham Lincoln, the sinking of the Titanic and the landing at Normandy, The Times is now letting its readers travel through time with the click of a mouse. Searches for articles published before 1981 will produce PDF files showing pages or articles exactly as they appeared in the newspaper.

We wonder if they printed lots of terribly derogatory words for non-white people, women, and the Irish back then. Not that it would be any huge leap from the way they report now if they did … Actually we predict the articles will be almost the same as they are now. Just with more goats and stuff.

The New York Times Archive Dating Back to 1851 Now Available Online [AP]