If you have a copy of The New York Times nearby, take a look at the top left corner of the front page; you will see an issue number.
On the front page of this Nov. 7, 1900, copy of the Times, the issue number is listed as 15,860. The real issue number, however, was 15,360.
Credits: REBECCA J. ROSEN
Apparently, The New York Times published a glaring mistake on its front page every single day for more than a century before the error was finally fixed. It’s unclear exactly what happened, but according to a Times’ correction, which was issued on New Year’s Day in 2000, the error likely stemmed from a calculation mistake on the part of a careless staffer:
On Feb. 6, 1898, it seems, someone preparing the next day’s front page tried to add 1 to the issue number in the upper left corner (14,499) and came up with 15,000. Apparently no one noticed, because the 500-issue error persisted until yesterday (No. 51,753). Today The Times turns back the clock to correct the sequence: this issue is No. 51,254.
Thus an article on March 14, 1995, celebrating the arrival of No. 50,000 was 500 days premature. It should have appeared on July 26, 1996.
The New York Times continued running its issue numbers like this, 500 editions ahead of reality, every day for more than 100 years. It wasn’t until the end of 1999 when an intrepid news assistant—a 24-year-old man responsible for, among other things, updating each edition’s issue number—began to question the system’s potential for error. After poring over thousands of archival issues, he found the hidden fluke from a century past.
Typos have been responsible for some of the most expensive mistakes in history, but the price of this one, fortunately, was only a little embarrassment. “An article on March 14, 1995, celebrating the arrival of No. 50,000 was 500 days premature,” the correction added. “It should have appeared on July 26, 1996.”
Sources: Huff Post, The Atlantic, Mental Floss
