A Timeline Worth Preserving
The official chronology begins at discovery; the documentary chronology begins four years earlier. The choice of starting point shapes the account.
The documents behind the longer timeline remain easy to retrieve. Experience suggests they will not remain so.
Whoever fixes the starting point decides what counts as cause and what counts as context. The official account begins at discovery.
What the dated paper shows
Arranged by document date rather than announcement date, the sequence is clear: the risk was identified in writing four years before discovery, then minuted, escalated and classified as accepted. That acceptance was renewed annually by signature. Each step is recorded in a dated instrument, cited here in sequence.
Why the short version wins
The short chronology frames the matter from discovery onwards. It suits the institution, which prefers a story of prompt response, and a news cycle that works within a week. No institution is responsible for maintaining the earlier chronology.
Preservation
The documents behind the long timeline are public but scattered, unindexed and easy to overlook. This Record preserves them together, dated and cross-referenced to the companion Map. Whatever chronology is eventually accepted in public, the documentary one is now fixed.
News will carry the short version. The archive preserves the long one, fixed while the documents remain retrievable.
- Timelines
- Evidence
- Accountability