Test Your 2020 Memory: When Did This Happen in Boston?

Dropkick Murphys Fenway performance photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images | Illustration by Spencer Buell

It has been nine whole months since the effects of the pandemic really took hold in Boston, and life as we knew it changed dramatically. Does that feel… right to you? Or does it somehow feel like years and years have elapsed since you last took a trip to Shaw’s without a surgical mask?

Maybe, depending on who you are and how you’ve managed the stress packed into this excruciating year, it actually feels like just yesterday you were packing into the Green Line and paying covers at the Royale, with virtually no virus-related qualms about standing millimeters away from your fellow Bostonians. March happened, the world descended into chaos, you blinked, and it was Christmas.

Whatever the case may be in your particular quarantine-addled brain, research has shown that the sensation of living in a kind of time warp in 2020 is widespread. In one survey of 1,000 people that a psychology researcher conducted this year, 50 percent of respondents said it felt like time was marching on abnormally slowly, while 25 percent said it felt like time was flying by.

So, humor us for a minute here. If we asked how long it’s been since Opening Day for the Red Sox (which, you may recall, was held on an unusual date this year) could you answer with confidence? Speaking of Fenway, remember that big Dropkick Murphys livestream at the stadium that millions of people tuned in to watch? Any guess as to when that happened?

To gauge just how much the time-bending phenomenon has taken root in this city, we put together this little quiz. We’ve been testing it out among our staff, and we’ve been shocked at how hard it is to remember these things, many of which we covered ourselves. Let us know how you do.