One Easter Egg To Rule Them All: Apple Hides Lord Of The Rings Timeline In OS X

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The smallest Mac in Mordor.
The smallest Mac in Mordor.

Apple loves to hide little surprises, or “easter eggs,” within its software — such as the memorable quotes inside its OS X icons, or the temporary date (Jan 24, 1984 — when the first Macintosh was unveiled) given to apps downloaded from the Mac App Store. A new one has been discovered that’s sure to please Lord of the Rings fans.

Typing a simple comment into Terminal reveals a Lord of the Rings timeline that Apple has hidden in OS X. Here’s how to access it.

Open up the Terminal app on your mac, and enter:

cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr

There’s nothing funny about this command — it won’t change anything, and your Mac won’t explode on your desk. It’s just a bit of fun. Once you have hit return, you’ll be presented with a Lord of the Rings timeline.

We hate to provide spoilers for those who want to try this out themselves, but for those on Windows, we’ve pasted the timeline below:

#ifndef _calendar_lotr_
#define _calendar_lotr_

01/05 Fellowship enters Moria
01/09 Fellowship reaches Lorien
01/17 Passing of Gandalf
02/07 Fellowship leaves Lorien
02/17 Death of Boromir
02/20 Meriadoc & Pippin meet Treebeard
02/22 Passing of King Ellesar
02/24 Ents destroy Isengard
02/26 Aragorn takes the Paths of the Dead
03/05 Frodo & Samwise encounter Shelob
03/08 Deaths of Denethor & Theoden
03/18 Destruction of the Ring
03/29 Flowering of the Mallorn
04/04 Gandalf visits Bilbo
04/17 An unexpected party
04/23 Crowning of King Ellesar
05/19 Arwen leaves Lorian to wed King Ellesar
06/11 Sauron attacks Osgiliath
06/13 Bilbo returns to Bag End
06/23 Wedding of Ellesar & Arwen
07/04 Gandalf imprisoned by Saruman
07/24 The ring comes to Bilbo
07/26 Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles
08/03 Funeral of King Theoden
08/29 Saruman enters the Shire
09/10 Gandalf escapes from Orthanc
09/14 Frodo & Bilbo’s birthday
09/15 Black riders enter the Shire
09/18 Frodo and company rescued by Bombadil
09/28 Frodo wounded at Weathertop
10/05 Frodo crosses bridge of Mitheithel
10/16 Boromir reaches Rivendell
10/17 Council of Elrond
10/25 End of War of the Ring
11/16 Bilbo reaches the Lonely Mountain
12/05 Death of Smaug
12/16 Fellowship begins Quest

#endif /* !_calendar_lotr_ */

Awesome, isn’t it?

Via: The Mac Observer

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