Over 34 million unique hits, published in three gaming magazines, linked on nearly every gaming blog on the internet, digged over 6,600 times between its three appearances on the Digg front page, Slashdotted twice and still going...
Feel free to re-post or publish this, just please keep the entire list intact with credits at the bottom and email me a link, @hodapp on Twitter, or send me a copy!
Duke Nukem Forever was a computer game that had been under development by 3D Realms since its announcement on April 28th, 1997, originally slated to use the (then) state of the art Quake II 3D engine. A few months later, screen shots were published in PC Gamer magazine, along with an intended release date of mid-1998. Excitement grew in May of 1998 when a few short video clips of Duke Nukem Forever were shown at E3... Surely a final release of the game was right around the corner!
Just about when mid-1998 arrived (June, specifically) 3D Realms announced they were changing 3D engines to Epic's Unreal engine. George Broussard, the producer and co-creator of the Duke Nukem series insisted that this change would not cause any significant delay, despite all logic pointing to the contrary. Also at this point, Broussard assured everyone Duke Nukem Forever would see a 1999 release.
1999 came and went, Duke Nukem Forever saw another engine change, this time to an updated version of the same Unreal engine they were working on. 3D Realms even released a Duke Nukem Christmas card, insinuating a 2000 release. Not surprisingly, the year 2000 came and went without Duke Nukem Forever. Another Christmas card was released, this time hinting at a 2001 release.
In the summer of 2001, 3D Realms released the most substantial proof to date that Duke Nukem Forever has ever existed in any form- a two and a half minute game play trailer:
In 2002, 3D Realms hired new programmers, and decided instead of switching to another 3D engine, they would just develop their own, making this the fourth engine change since the initial announcement of the game. Broussard eventually came out to say that at this point, "95%" of the already designed levels had been scraped, and had they remained on track they would have been "two years" off from releasing Duke Nukem Forever under the Unreal engine.
In early 2003, the CEO of Take Two, 3D Realms' publisher announced Duke Nukem Forever would be released by the end of the year. This eventually changed to "by the end of 2004" and then "in the beginning of 2005." In September of 2004, GameSpot.com revealed a rumor that Duke Nukem Forever had made its fifth 3D engine change, this time using the Quake III engine. Broussard denied the rumor, but announced only a few days later that they had switched to a different physics engine for the game.
Duke Nukem Forever news in the years to follow was limited to rumblings on forums and mostly consisted of drama between 3D Realms and Take Two which wasn't very interesting. During this time, the only thing we've even saw that provided any proof that anything was even happening with Duke Nukem Forever is a small (and I mean SMALL) 200x125 image of a supposed screen shot which was posted on several 3D Realms job postings online.
A Duke Nukem Forever teaser was released on the 19th of December, 2007. Along with it came the normal "blah blah blah, when it's done" we've heard before.
(If the video doesn't show up, disable ad blockers.)
On June 5th, 2008 ShackNews posted a story entitled "New Duke Nukem Forever Footage Released" regarding a short interview of George Broussard and Scott Miller on The Jace Hall Show. During the interview, Jace asks them what has been taking them so long. Broussard replies, "There's been a lot of mistakes and a lot of lessons we had to learn, most of all a lot of World of Warcraft." A remark intended as a tongue in cheek joke I'm sure, but probably not far from the truth.
At the end of the segment Jace says, "You're going to be pleased." Honestly, I think everyone wanted to believe this. The footage looked cool, although nowhere near as revolutionary as the 2001 trailer, given the state of the first person shooter genre at the time... but never the less, it looked close to being finished. All was quiet on the Duke Nukem Forever news ticker until May 6th, 2009.
Almost a year following Jace's hands-on look at the game, ShackNews announced the death of 3D Realms. Originally tipped off by a "very reliable source", ShackNews broke the story of funding issues as phone calls and emails to veterans of 3D Realms went unanswered. A 3D Realms spokesperson even declined to comment. Later updates provided some insight to the closure, revealing that Take-Two was not funding the development of Duke Nukem Forever and the closure of 3D Realms was not affecting the development of the handheld Duke Nukem Trilogy.
So there you have it folks, show's over after 12 years and 9 days, less time than it took Barack Obama to go from his first election as an Illinois Senator to becoming President of the United States... And all we have to show for it are a few videos and screen shots.
This whole meltdown of 3D Realms is providing some excellent insight on why things were taking so long, like this forum post allegedly from an ex-3D Realms employee. (And please keep in mind I have no idea how true this is, but it makes sense. If someone from 3D Realms wants to drop me an email and set the record straight I'd be more than happy to add whatever you have to say.)
"The 2001 trailer was 100% scripted cinematic, and not actual gameplay. They built specific demo maps just to record video from to make a trailer. Everything you see in that trailer was phony.
The typical work flow there went something like this:
Designer would be assigned a task (build a new map, rebuild an old map, polish a bit of a map, etc.). Designer would work on said task for two, three weeks, a month, all the while lower management would be looking over it and making sure it was going in a "good general direction." Designer would move on to another task. A month or two later upper management would finally look at the work and say, "It's all wrong, do it again." Rinse, repeat.
Entire maps would be done from the ground up, almost to beta quality, and then thrown out simply because no one would make decisions early on in the process. (Read up on Valve's 'orange box' method of design -- that's how you make games)
Another example of is the fact that there was one part of one map that was being worked on before I started working there. Nineteen months later and the same designer was still working on the same part of that same map... I'm not blaming the designer, it wasn't his fault.
I think the biggest problem that the company had in general is being self-funded. When you're a developer working directly with a publisher and you have milestones to meet it's a whole different ballgame. If you don't meet those milestones, you don't get any money. That right there will keep your project on schedule. If, however, you're funding it yourself, you don't really have anyone to answer to except yourself and you can quickly lose sight of just how much money is going out the door."
"It was originally posted on Something Awful, and I posted a followup. Unfortunately the guy who posted it wasn't there when the trailer was developed, and he's mistaken.
Everything but the sandworm and the "talking" parts were just clips of gameplay from the game as-is, other than some effort to polish them up. The talking parts were written for the trailer, but were accurate representations of the story being told and were intended for real use.
So while those bits were "scripted" they would be scripted in the final shipping game too, but all the rest (vehicles, weapons, AI, games, etc) were straight from the production playable game."
So where does the truth lie? It's hard to say, probably somewhere in the middle. I have a feeling more and more things like this are going to come to light now that 3D Realms is no more.
What's going to happen next? Who knows. It's entirely possible 3D Realms could sell the project off to another developer who finishes it inside of a month and releases it. Alternatively, George Broussard could take the codebase to his grave. Regardless, here's what happened in the time it took Duke Nukem Forever to blow our minds and then disappear like a fart in a strong breeze.
Update - 2/11/2011
Amazingly enough, it seems that Duke Nukem Forever will actually see the light of day. Its official release date is May 6th, 2011. Initial impressions of the game have been posted on quite a few sites, and seem fairly positive. Kotaku seems to provide the best summary:
Is Duke Nukem the sort of game that comes from more than 13 years of development? No, most certainly not. Was it worth the wait? For fans of Duke Nukem? Probably.
The following things have been accomplished between Duke Nukem Forever's announcement on April 28th, 1997 and its death on May 6th, 2009...
Popular Video Game Series Releases
Duke Nukem
Duke Nukem 64 (Nintendo 64 - October 1997)
Duke Nukem: Time to Kill (PlayStation 1 - 1998)
Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (Nintendo 64, - 1999)
Duke Nukem (Game Boy Color - 1999)
Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes (PlayStation 1 - 2000)
Duke Nukem: Advance (Game Boy Advance - 2002)
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project (PC - 2002)
Duke Nukem Mobile (Sidescroller): (Mobile Phones - 2004)
Duke Nukem Mobile (3D): (Tapwave Zodiac - 2004, Mobile Phones - 2005)
Duke Nukem Mobile II: Bikini Project (Mobile Phones - 2005)
Final Fantasy:
Main Series
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XII
Cell Phone Games
Before Crisis: Final Fantasy
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode
Tactics Series
Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactice Advance
Crystal Chronicles Series
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearer
Remakes
Final Fantasy Collection
Final Fantasy Anthology
Final Fantasy Chronicles
Final Fantasy Origins
Final Fantasy I & 2: Dawn of Souls
Final Fantasy III DS
Final Fantasy IV DS
Final Fantasy IV Advance
Final Fantasy V Advance
Final Fantasi VI Advance
Games Featuring Final Fantasy Characters
Ehrgeiz
Kingtom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts II
Movies, Anime Series & Concerts
Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within
Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Entire Series
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Final Fantasy: Dear Friends, Entire World Tour
Grand Theft Auto:
Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto, Gameboy Color Port
Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto: London 1969
Grand Theft Auto: London 1961
Grand Theft Auto 2
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto Advance
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, PS2 Port
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
The Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Oracle of Ages
Oracle of Seasons
The Wind Waker
Four Swords Adventures
The Minish Cap
Six remakes of previous Zelda titles for the Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance and Gamecube.
Link's Awakening DX, Gameboy Color
A Link to the Past, Gameboy Advance
Ocarina of Time, Gamecube
The Zelda Collector Edition, Gamecube
Classic NES Series: The Legend of Zelda, Gameboy Advance
Classic NES Series: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Gameboy Advance
Phantom Hourglass
Twilight Princess
The Sims:
The Sims
The Sims: Livin' Large
The Sims: House Party
The Sims: Hot Date
The Sims: Vacation
The Sims: Unleashed
The Sims: Superstar
The Sims: Makin' Magic
The Sims Online
The Sims 2
The Sims 2: University
The Sims 2: Nightlife
The Sims 2: Open for Business
The Sims (Console Port)
The Sims Bustin' Out
The Sims 2 (Console Port)
The Urbz: Sims in the City
Other Popular Game Series:
Over 75 games based in the MegaMan universe, and 12 games featuring MegaMan universe character cameos.
Over 50 games based in the Star Wars universe.
Mario has appeared in over 50 different video games.
Every Massive Multiplayer Online game and expansion with the exception of Meridian 59.
Every Dance Dance Revolution and Bemani rhythm game
Every Pokemon game released outside of Japan.
Every Unreal, every Unreal Tournament, and every game that has used any of the Unreal engines.
Quake 2, 3, 4, and countless games that have used their engines.
Every Tony Hawk and extreme sport spin-off game.
Daikatana began development 10 days before Duke Nukem Forever- Unfortunately no one was made John Romero's bitch
when it hit retail shelves on May 23rd, 2000.
3DRealms and Remedy bring Max Payne and its sequel from concepts to finished games, porting both to Xbox and PS2, and Mark Wahlberg even starred in a mediocre full length feature film based on the series.
Valve released both Half-Life 1 and 2, with several expansion packs and countless mods for each.
Every version of Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike Source were developed.
Every Thief game.
Black Isle was formed, released seven titles and was shut down.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and IV:Oblivion, and the entire Baldur's Gate series.
Wizards of the Coast has printed six Core Sets, 30 Expansion Sets of Magic: The Gathering. If someone bought one of every single card printed since DNF was announced, they would have a collection of over 100,000 cards.
Every installment of Metal Gear Solid released to date, as well as Ghost Babel (MGS for the Gameboy) and the Metal Gear Acid series for PSP.
A garage full of programmers in Croatia (Croteam) developed the engine and created the game Serious Sam. Since then there have been
multiple sequels and console ports- all off a fraction of the money 3D Realms has blown on DNF's development.
Every 3D Prince of Persia game.
Aside from Wolfenstein 3D, every single First Person Shooter based during World War II, including the entire Medal of Honor series.
While DNF was been in production, Blizzard Entertainment, another studio famous for delays, has released four full games(Starcraft, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, and World of Warcraft), with expansions for all of them.
Bioware released Neverwinter Nights with two expansions, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Jade Empire. All games are deep, lengthy RPGs that demand multiple playthroughs.
The entire Halo trilogy.
Every Gran Turismo game.
Team Fortress 2
Video Game Systems:
Microsoft XBOX
Microsoft XBOX 360
Several revisions including the Elite and Halo Edition
Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo Wii
Nintendo Gameboy Color
Gameboy Advance
Gameboy Advance SP
Gameboy Micro
Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS Lite
Nintendo DSi
Sega Dreamcast
Sony PSone
Sony Playstation 2
Sony Slim Playstation 2
Sony Playstation 3
Several revisions with different hardware, pack-ins, and backwards compatibility options
Sony PSP
Sony PSP Slim
Over 4500 games were released for the above video game systems in the United States.
Over 350,000,000 consoles and handhelds were sold worldwide.
Fun Facts
Computers & Internet:
In 1997, the fastest consumer internet connection was a 33.6 kbps modem. On average, consumer internet connections are nearly 1000 times faster in 2009.
When Duke Nukem Forever was announced, the fastest processor available to consumers was a 233Mhz Pentium. Since its death the clock speed of consumer
processors has increased over 16 times (32 times counting dual cores), and the fabrication process has decreased from 250nm to 45nm.
In October of 2001, Apple announced the iPod and Slashdot dismissed it as an immediate failure. Since then there have been 6 generations, as well as 2 of Minis, 3 of shuffles, and 4 of nanos. Oh, and also the iPod Touch, with which, along with the iPhone, Apple created the hottest not-just-gaming mobile platform. iTunes came from being nothing to being the biggest music retailer in the US.
Steve Jobs was still running NeXT when Duke Nukem Forever was announced.
Every peer to peer file sharing program including Napster was developed.
In April of 1997, Google, eBay, and the term "weblog" didn't exist.
Linux gained at least 10 times the popularity it had while its kernel tripled in size.
Mac OS switched to UNIX and became the most highly regarded general purpose operating system on the market
among the computing press.
Apple migrated its entire Macintosh line to Intel processors and every Mac sold can now run Windows.
Microsoft released 5 consumer-oriented
versions of Windows.
Netscape Navigator 4 was released, Microsoft Internet Explorer destroyed it.
Netscape 6 released on an entirely different rendering platform, Netscape dies, Mozilla foundation rises.
Open-source Mozilla browsers become popular and force Microsoft to start working on new version of Internet Explorer.
Valve releases Steam and sets a new standard in digital software distribution.
MySpace went from beta to the largest social-networking site in the world (and the fourth most popular English language website).
Since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever Microsoft has released DirectX5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9.0c, 10, 10.1, and announced DirectX 11.
The entire Geforce and Radeon lines of graphics cards are newer than Duke Nukem Forever, as well as both brand's predecessors, the Nvidia TNTs and ATI's RAGE.
When Duke Nukem Forever was announced the highest resolution for contemporary CRT monitors was 1280x1024, with most gamers using 640x480, or 800x600. In 2009 there are commercial monitors as large as 2048×1152, with design specifications as high resolution as 7680x4800, 120 times more detailed than 640x480.
The first online casino went live in 1997, since then the industry has doubled in size every year. As of 2008, worldwide online casinos are worth close to $300 billion dollars, with a largest single jackpot of just over $4 million dollars from a 5-reel 20-line online slot machine. Internet gambling has revolutionized random number generation, with some sites using everything from Earth's atmosphere to site-wide user mouse movements as numerical seeds for slots, poker, and everything else.
With very rare exceptions, all webcomics, in particular video gaming ones, appeared and lived on (and sometimes folded, sometimes thrived) during the development of DNF, as of May 6th, 2009. In other worlds, DNF had, until the 6th of May 2009, always been known as being in development for the whole lifetime of all webcomics.
Disasters:
Two Boeing 767 airplanes crashed in to both World Trade Center towers, killing 2750 and spawning countless conspiracy theories.
There have been 125 tropical cyclones. 73 hurricans in the Atlantic, 52 typhoons in the Pacific.
There have been over 20 death-toll producing tornado outbreaks in the United States.
Over 50 major earthquakes have shaken the world, which have shortened the Earth day by 2.68 microseconds.
Hurricane Katrina wiped New Orleans off the map and killed 1,836 in the process.
The fourth most powerful earthquake recorded since 1900 triggered a massive tsunami killing over 200,000 people in various countries bordering the Indian Ocean.
Economy:
Adjusted for inflation, the average price of gas in the United States has doubled.
The Euro was introduced as a new European currency.
Enron has filed for bankruptcy and folded. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling have been arrested on fraud charges and subsequently indicted and convicted. Ken Lay is now dead and Jeff Skilling is rotting away in prison.
Apple's market cap exceeded Dell's.
Nintendo became the second largest company in Japan.
The mortgage bubble and .com bubble came and went.
Movies that were filmed, released in theatres, and have made it to DVD:
All three Star Wars prequels.
The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, with extended editions.
Every Pixar movie aside from Toy Story.
Five James Bond films, including a complete reboot of the series.
Every movie, animation, and video game from The Matrix series.
Every Marvel comics movie released.
Each predictable twist ending of every movie by M. Night Shyamalan.
In the same vein, the DVD format was finalzed and the DVD forum agreed on the HD-DVD format.
BluRay won the HD video format war.
Pop Culture:
Britney Spears' entire musical career as a pop star has taken place during Duke Nukem Forever's development.
Theater box office totals since the announcement are over $2.62 billion.
Colin Farrell's entire movie career has also taken place during development.
The concept of Bullet Time has been developed, pioneered, and completely run in to the ground.
Cellular Phones ownership has become commonplace, whereas in 1997 they were viewed as luxurious expenditures.
In 1997, Apple was taking preorders from Mac OS 8 and had an uncertain financial future. Since then, they completely developed and released two different versions of the iPhone which have seen such massive market penetration that the iPhone has even been joked about on The Simpsons.
The entire cult following of Family Guy! Family Guy has debuted on FOX, been cancelled, entered syndication, been released on DVD, redebuted on FOX, and seen the release of a feature film.
The entire Harry Potter series as well as five movies.
Stephen King has written 16 novels.
The first episode of South Park was first aired on August 13, 1997, the same year in which DNF was announced. The show is now in the second half of it's tenth season, with 'Tsst' being the 146 episode shown.
King of the Hill first aired on January 12 of the same year, around the same time prototype work was being done in the Quake Engine for DNF. It recently finished it's tenth season, with 201 episodes.
The episode count of 'The Simpsons' has more then doubled since DNFs announcement. Season 8, episode 23 was the 176th episode, and aired on May fourth, 1997. The 352nd episode aired on May 1st, 2005.
Twelve seasons of Survivor. The Thirtenth comes this fall.
The ending of Star Trek shows Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and the beginning and ending of Enterprise, plus the films First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis.
Joss Whedon showed us that he truly is our master with every Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly episode. (Oh, and the movie Serenity.)
Science & Technology:
The Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled 8.8 billion miles from Earth.
The two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity were proposed, authorized,
announced, designed, launched and successfully landed upon Mars where they
have been exploring the surface for over 2.5 years.
NASA's Deep Impact program also went full circle.
The International Space Station was assembled and has been orbiting Earth for over 8 years.
NASA has launched 30 manned space shuttle missions, Russia has launched 17.
The Airbus A380 "Super Jumbo" plane was designed, built, tested, and delivered to airlines.
Tier One developed, built, tested, and launched SpaceShipOne- winning the Ansari X-Prize
for being the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.
In 1997 there were only 50 million US cell phone subscribers in the United States. Today there are more than 200 million,
which amounts to over 60% of the population of the USA.
The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (the largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world) was in contract, built, launched, comissioned, and began active duty.
Costa Concordia, the biggest Italian cruise liner was designed, built and delivered by the Fincantieri shipyards, in Italy.
The Space Shuttle Columbia burnt up during re-entry, the entire Space Shuttle program went through a safety overhaul, and the Shuttle returned to flight.
Sports
The single season home run record has been broken, twice.
Barry Bonds set a new all-time home run record.
The Red Sox broke their curse by finally winning the world series.
Two of the greatest NBA Dynasties in history have reigned and ended: The incredible 1990s Chicago Bulls dynasty were still unmatched in '97 and disbanded after the '98 finals.
The Los Angeles Lakers acquired Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal in '97 and Phil Jackson in '99, effectively becoming the greatest team in the NBA at the time with another landmark dynasty that lasted from 2000-2002. The Lakers disbanded after losing the finals to the Pistons in 2004.
There have been five Olympic Games (three winter, two summer).
Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France 7 consecutive years.
The World Wrestling Federation has changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment and bought its two main competitors, WCW and ECW, relaunching ECW, and facing new competition from TNA.
The Cubs have lost 798 games since April '97.
St. Louis Cardinals moved from Busch Stadium to new Busch stadium.
Philidelphia Phillies moved from Veterans Stadium to Citizens Bank Ballpark.
The Houston Astros moved from the Astrodome to Enron Field (Now Minute-Maid Park).
The Cincinnati Reds moved from Cinergy Field to Great American Ballpark.
The Milwaukee Brewers moved from County Stadium to Miller Park.
The San Diego Padres moved from Qualcomm stadium to Petco Park.
The Pittsburgh Pirates moved from Three-River Stadium to PNC Park.
The Detroit Tigers moved from Tiger Stadium to Comerica Park.
The Seattle Mariners moved from The Kingdome to Safeco Field.
The Montreal Expos are now the Washington Nationals.
The Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays were formed.
The Cleveland Browns turned into the Baltimore Ravens.
A new Cleveland Browns team was formed and moved into a new stadium.
The Cincinnati Bengals moved from Cinergy Field to Paul Brown Stadium.
The New England Patriots moved from Foxboro Stadium to Gillete Stadium.
The Tennessee Titans moved into The Coliseum after 3 years at a college football stadium.
The Pittsburgh Steelers moved from Three-Rivers Stadium to Heinz Field.
The Denver Broncos moved from Mile High Stadium to Invesco Field.
The Washington Redskins moved from RFK Stadium to FedEx Field.
The Phildelphia Eagles moved from Veterans Stadium to Lincoln Financial Field.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers moved from Houlihan Stadium to Raymond James Stadium.
The Detroit Lions moved from the Silverdome to Ford Field.
The Seattle Seahawks moved from the Kingdome to Qwest Field.
Brette Farve set a new all-time passing touchdown record while the careers of Ryan Leaf and Cade McNown began, sucked, and ended.
United States Politics:
The Identity of Deep Throat has been revealed.
40 new members have been elected to the Senate.
The national debt has increased by over 3 trillion dollars.
Bill Clinton finished his presidential term, George W. Bush was elected, re-elected, and finished his term.
Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigned, was elected, and served a full term as California governor.
World Events:
4 nations have acquired nuclear weapons technology.
19 wars have begun.
5 wars have ended.
Approximately 509,373,306 people have died and 661,373,082 have been born.
There have been 7 total solar eclipses and 8 total lunar eclipses.
The United Kingdom handed sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
There have been 22 "major" school shootings worldwide.
The population of the world has crossed six billion
After a nearly 98% vote, Sudan split in to two countries.
Things that have taken less time than Duke Nukem Forever's Development:
Pop Culture:
The Beatles formed, released every single one of their albums and broke up. During this time they also toured the world
several times.
Led Zeppelin released 7 albums, 9 singles, and toured around the world, crossing international borders 27 times (not counting mainland Europe.)
Calvin and Hobbes started in syndication, over the years became widely considered as the best comic strip ever made, then was ended by its creator.
Science & Technology:
The Wright brothers designed and flew the first airplane.
The theory of General Relativity.
The United States' entire program to put a man on the moon, from Kennedy's challenge to the landing.
The complete construction of many monumental buildings and engineering projects. To name a few-
The Empire State Building (Jan 1930 - May 1931)
The Channel Tunnel (Dec 1987 - May 1994)
The Golden Gate Bridge (Jan 1933 - May 1937)
The World Trade Center (Aug 1966 - April 1973)
The digging of the Suez Canal (by hand) took 11 years, from December 1858 to November 1869.
The building of the Titanic took 3 years, from March 1909 to March 1912.
The Hoover Dam was built in 5 years (1931-1936), although it took 9 years on top of that (starting in 1922) for the paperwork.
The tallest structure on Earth, the Burj Dubai, was built in 5 years (2004-2009, technically they're still doing the finishing work).
Wars:
The American War for Independence
The United States Civil War
World War I
The United State's involvement in the Vietnam War.
World War II and the entire Manhattan Project. Yes, even the complete development of the atomic bomb took less time.
Alexander The Great's conquest of Persia took 6 years, from 334BC to 328BC
Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul took 7 years, from 58 BC to 51BC
Things that happened since the List of Things That Have Happened Since Duke Nukem Forever Was Announced was written:
Barack Obama announced his candidacy, slogged through the longest Presidential campaign in American history, and was elected.
Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and wiped out much of the Gulf Coast.
Ehud Olmert came to power in Israel, pursued a war against Lebanon, and was succeeded by Netanyahu.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have had their entire Supreme Court careers since the list was written.
The world panicked over bird flu, calmed down, panicked over swine flu, and apparently dodged a bullet.
The iPhone was announced, released, and developed to the point where it could make fart noises.
Windows Vista was released, sputtered a bit, and is now reaching the end of its life cycle.
Credits
Thanks to wntd for the kickin' CSS and marshmonkey of NimbleBit for the cool tombstone image. Check their site out if you're looking for sweet iPhone games.
Thanks to
CaptainPsyko,
BonzoESC,
n1ck,
Fish,
MrBrainsample,
Skroob,
stabby,
Josh Taylor,
v0idnull,
wildfalkon,
Joachim Blum,
Mr.D.,
CellBlock,
HeroinAllstar,
Deathwind,
minivanmegafun,
mroach,
Simon Howard,
Pierre "Zacha Pedro" Lebeaupin,
Premek,
Robbie Schumacher,
xkcd,
Jetsetlemming,
Platypus Farm
and anyone else I'm missing who chipped in facts for the updated list. Also, thanks to Wikipedia nerds who spend so much time
listing weird things like every game Mario is in.
is the fact that there was one part of one map that was being worked on before I started working there. Nineteen months later and the same designer was still working on the same part of that same map... I'm not blaming the designer, it wasn't his fault.
