I bet your cell phone knows what today’s date is.  Your computer should know too, right?  Depending on how your system is set up, you might even see the current date on your screen.  Well, your command line also knows what date it is and can tell you if you ask it.  The command is called (drum roll here please):  date

Alpha:~ computerlamp$ date
Fri Apr 28 15:21:15 EDT 2017

That’s the date that I wrote this and it even include the actual time.  That’s rather useful, isn’t it?

What else can we do?  Well, let’s find out what today’s month looks like.  I had an appointment on the 15th but I forgot what day of the week that was.  Well, there’s a command for that!

Alpha:~ computerlamp$ cal
     April 2017
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                   1
 2  3  4  5  6  7  8
 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30

That’s one useful command, isn’t it?  I can see that the 15th was on a Saturday.  But hey, it’s almost the end of the month, I want to know what day of the week May 14th is.  Well, I can ask that too:

Alpha:~ computerlamp$ cal 5 2017
      May 2017
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
    1  2  3  4  5  6
 7  8  9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31

I just asked it for the calendar for the fifth month of the year 2017.  Huh.  I wonder what happens if I ask it for the calendar for May 2020.

Alpha:~ computerlamp$ cal 5 2020
      May 2020
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31

What do you know, that works too!  I can ask for the month and year for almost any time!  I bet that would come in use when Flash starts playing with the timeline again

The Flash Changing Time Again!

I bet if he goes way back into the past I can figure out what the calendar looks like.

According to this Captain America disappeared around April 18, 1945.  That was a Wednesday!

Alpha:~ computerlamp$ cal April 1945
     April 1945
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 8  9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30

So The Flash could go back in time and rescue him, right?  Except that Captain America is Marvel and The Flash is DC.  Oh well, details, right?