1851 → 2026 / a historical research index

Follow the paper trail.

Explore the names found in 21,264,134 local archive rows from Eigen Times and Eigen Hacks. A name candidate, a confirmed identity, and a verified article mention are different records.

A Wikipedia and Wikidata match identifies who a candidate value names. It does not confirm that every associated article refers to that identity, or establish a professional relationship. Known-name candidates have separate date and context checks; the wider NYT discovery index is uncurated article evidence.

351 of 351 known-name candidate records. Identity confirmation and article qualification are separate checks.

Wikidata-confirmed identity / candidate article mentions

Neil Armstrong

Wikipedia: Neil Armstrong ↗ · Q1615 ↗

Open the confirmed identity record ↗

Wikipedia and Wikidata confirm the matched identity, not every article mention. Activity-date and context checks remove known implausible matches. Passing those checks does not verify that an article refers to this person.

Coverage through time

YearPlausible mentionsQuarantined
2026611
202597
202466
2023119
202299
202169
202086
20192755
20181522
201789
2016510
2015919
20141012
20131010
20124242
2011014
2010714
2009643
2008015
2007014
2006011
2005015
2004018
2003013
2002012
2001014
2000010
1999035
199802
199702
199602
199504
199403
199303
199102
199001
198902
198701
198602
198501
198403
198301
198102
197902
197801
197701
197601
197502
197402
197301
197203
197103
197002

Source references

Selected references from articles that passed the mention checks. Mentions may be incidental.

What was scanned

21,264,134 stored rows across the two corpora. The distinct-ID counts below sum to 20,660,050; this sum is not deduplicated across corpora. Repeated rows and shared reporting are not additional people or independent evidence.

Eigenhacks / Hacker News

4,762,682 stored rows · 4,171,781 distinct article IDs · 238 local partition files.

Publication coverage: 2006-10-09 to 2026-09-05. Scan recorded 2026-10-01; later live editions can contain newer articles.

SourceStored rowsDistinct article IDsPartitions
hackernews4,762,6824,171,781238

370 dictionary names were scanned. 55,200 articles contained raw matches; 52,467 had at least one plausible, still-unreviewed person mention.

Mention qualification results
Check resultPerson/article pairsDistinct articles
ambiguous name without context3,2973,268
before documented activity77
plausible unreviewed candidate62,00952,467

One article can contain several names and appear in more than one check category. These are mention checks, not Wikipedia identity confirmations.

Eigen Times local news archive

16,501,452 stored rows · 16,488,269 distinct article IDs · 2,983 local partition files.

Publication coverage: 1851-09-18 to 2026-09-05. Scan recorded 2026-10-01; later live editions can contain newer articles.

SourceStored rowsDistinct article IDsPartitions
guardian954,841954,840333
nyt15,407,54115,395,4832,098
wiki-current-events117,898116,774297
wikinews21,17221,172255

370 dictionary names were scanned. 39,289 articles contained raw matches; 24,322 had at least one plausible, still-unreviewed person mention.

Mention qualification results
Check resultPerson/article pairsDistinct articles
ambiguous name without context2,1822,178
before documented activity568566
missing dated identity evidence16,89415,243
plausible unreviewed candidate28,27724,322

One article can contain several names and appear in more than one check category. These are mention checks, not Wikipedia identity confirmations.

Every locally available partition was scanned. The local NYT files omit 1978-09 and 1978-10; checks of the official NYT Archive API on 2026-10-01 returned HTTP 200 with zero articles for those months. Name extraction is not exhaustive. The wider keyword index uses a name-shape and technology-context heuristic; original keyword categories were not retained upstream. Candidate mentions never automatically become factual relationships.