macrology...

“When Gertrude Janeway died in 2003, she was still getting a monthly cheque for $70 from the Veterans Administration—for a military pension earned by her late husband, John, on the Union side of the American civil war that ended in 1865. The pair had married in 1927, when he was 81 and she was 18. The amount may have been modest but the entitlement spanned three centuries.”

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A pension promise can be easy to make but expensive to keep. Our special report explains why governments are in such hot water. (via theeconomist)

That is quite the most amazing thing. I’ve always marvelled at how connected we are to the past by people who actually met; John Wayne used to hang around Wyatt Earp while he was learning to act; my Grandmother was born before the end of the Great War; there are people alive who were alive when Queen Victoria was alive. When you think of the changes in the world that have happened and the amount of history that the lives of the old have seen, it really is amazing.

(via theeconomist)