I know we now know they went extinct 66 million years ago, and 64 millions is another date I’ve seen around, but how long how we known it was definitely way more than 40 millions ? I’m asking because it’s the date given in the the song “walk the dinosaurs” by Was (Not Was), and I wondered why such a number. Would it have seed credible at the time, or was it just arbitrary?
In the 80’s you believed anything anyone told you because there was no convenient way to look it up. Oh, you want to verify it? Better take the bus across town to the library, spend 30 minutes finding 4 dinosaur books, and then 3 hours pouring through them to see if they mention when they went extinct.
I subscribed to all sorts of newsletters, and at least one was dinosaur specific. I would also write professors at local colleges with questions and usually get a response.
Also worked at the library and could order just about any book available. At that point most libraries would order books if they didn’t have them already.
But mostly newsletters and science journals until BBS became more common and user friendly when we first started having available computers.
My mom bought us an encyclopedia set, and I read it cover to cover. A lot of people didn’t have those though.