Free tools for exploring the past
Official data from government sources. Inflation, investment history, birthday facts, retro tech and more. No account required.
Inflation Calculator
What was $100 worth in 1980? Enter any dollar amount and year to see its real value in today's money. Official BLS CPI data from 1913.
Birthday Lookback
Enter your birthday and discover the number 1 song, top film, petrol price, and world events from the exact day you were born.
Investment Calculator
What if you had invested $1,000 in Bitcoin in 2013? Or the S&P 500 in 1990? See the real return across 9 asset classes.
Age Calculator
Your exact age in years, months, days, hours and seconds. Milestone birthdays, days until your next birthday, and your generation.
What Happened In...
Enter any year from 1900 to 2020 and get a full summary of world events, top songs, films, science and sport.
Minimum Wage History
Was minimum wage enough to live on? US federal minimum wage adjusted for inflation since 1938 - and what workers could actually afford.
Salary History
What was your salary really worth? Compare any income to US median wages and inflation-adjusted purchasing power since 1950.
Price History
What did a house, car, loaf of bread or cinema ticket cost in the past? Real historical prices for 30 items with inflation adjustment.
Retro Tech Lookup
Pick any year from 1990 to 2015 and see the top phone, laptop, games console, browser and OS of that era.
Generation Compare
Boomers vs Gen X vs Millennials vs Gen Z. House prices relative to wages, university costs, and living standards across four generations.
Time Capsule
Write a letter to your future self. Choose when it opens: 1, 2, 5 or 10 years from now. We email it on that exact date.
Forgotten Websites
GeoCities. AltaVista. MSN Messenger. Xfire. The sites that shaped the early internet and exactly what killed each one.
GeoCities Generator
Generate a fully authentic 1998 GeoCities webpage with blinking text, tiled backgrounds and visitor counters.
About & Data Sources
How LooksBack works, where the data comes from, and how to report an error in any tool.
All inflation figures use CPI-U data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wages from the US Census Bureau. Housing from the FHFA. Every source is cited.
Every tool is completely free. No registration, no advertising, no data sharing. The only personal data collected is for the Time Capsule.
All tools work on phone, tablet and desktop. Keyboard navigable. Colour contrast meets WCAG AA. Tested in all major browsers.