If you know anything about baseball, then you’re probably familiar with just how feeble the Chicago Cubs have been for more than a century.
It’s been 108 years since Chicago won the World Series, and 71 years since the Cubs even made it to the Fall Classic.
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Multiple generations of Cubs fans have lived and died without ever seeing a title won.
To put that in baseball terms, the Cubs have played approximately 157,464 innings of regular season baseball since October 1908.
Sometimes sports droughts can make time stand still, and it becomes difficult to contextualize just how futile an exercise of being a fan of a struggling team can be.
So, what has happened in the decades since the Chicago last won the World Series? Here’s a time capsule:
- Four stars have been added to the American flag (New Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii, Alaska)
- Germany was defeated in two World Wars
- 19 presidents have sat in the Oval office, including three who died on the job (Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy)
- Converse shoe company, founded in 1908, has sold more than 700 million pairs of sneakers
- The Titanic was designed, built, sailed, sank, and was re-discovered
- Halley’s comet, which has an orbital period of 75 years, has passed earth twice
- The automobile and airplane both become major forms of transportation, eventually helping lead to man landing on the moon
- The Detroit Tigers, who lost to the Cubs in the 1908 World Series, have won four since then (1935, 1945, 1968, 1984)
- 14 teams have been joined MLB since then, and have combined to win eight titles
- The Montreal Canadiens (24) and Toronto Maple Leafs (13) have combined to capture 37 Stanley Cup championships
- Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier created the Canadian Navy (1910)
- The Halifax Explosion levelled the city, killing more than 1,000 people and destroying some 6,000 homes (1917)
- Canadian women won the right to vote in federal elections (1918)
- The Royal North West Mounted Police and Dominion Police merge to form the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (1920)
- The Bank of Canada was created by Parliament (1934)
- Newfoundland entered confederation in (1949)
- The current Canadian flag was introduced (1965)
- The “loonie” is put into circulation (1987)
- The USSR was created (1922) and crumbled (1991) within a 69 year span — still 39 years shorter than the Cubs’ drought
- The average life expectancy of an American man has increased by nearly 27 years since 1908, rising from 52.8 years to 76.2 years.
- The music genres of Jazz, Bluegrass, Rock, Reggae, R&B, Punk, Metal, Hip Hop and Rap were popularized
- The four members of The Beatles were all born at least 32 years after the most recent Cubs’ World Series win