I nominate this as a parlor game of my own inventing.

Pick a year … and see if you can accurately place one historical event in that year, and then see how many years you can go, from there, into the past before you are stumped. Whoever goes back the farthest wins the game.

How far back could you go? How far back could anyone go?

For example:

Let’s say we start our game with 1980.

The contestants all get a sheet of paper, and they write down one event which occurred in each of those years, working backwards.

Clearly, it is important to know quite a bit of history. But the birth years of friends and family would be of help, as would sports knowledge.

So, starting from 1980 … I might write: Ronald Reagan elected president.

1979: Georgia Frontiere takes over the Los Angeles Rams.

1978: The Dodgers lose to the Yankees in the World Series.

1977: The Dodgers lose to the Yankees in the World Series.

1976: Jimmy Carter elected president.

1975: The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series.

1974: President Nixon resigns.

1973: The Oakland Athletics win the World Series.

1972: Nixon wins a second term, over McGovern

1971: L.A. Lutheran High School reaches the semi-finals of the CIF 1A basketball playoffs.

1970: …

And so on.

What I would be really interested in discovering is how far back anyone, even armed with the internet and encyclopedias from around the world, could take this — one event known to have happened in every year.

I would think it would begin to get sketchy in the 1400s … and before the year 1000, you almost certainly would need to get lots of entries from China or Byzantium or the Arab world to keep going.

How far could a team of scholars take this? I bet in the early 600s, before Islam, after the western Roman Empire, it would be difficult to match up every year with something known to have happened. (For one thing, calendar changes, over the centuries, would complicate matters.)

I would love to find out.

Personally, I have a notion I could go back at least halfway through the 20th century, and with a bit of luck perhaps 20 more years after that and, by guessing well, maybe even back to World War I (1914-18). I would get stuck on 1913, I fear. One of my grandmothers was born right around then, and 1912 is the Titanic, but 1911 …

OK. Just checked. My grandmother was born in 1914. So I would have missed on 1913.

Isn’t this fun? A great way for the whole family to while away a dreary winter weekend!