" He [Doc] leaned against the shiny frame of the DeLorean, his eyes misted in happy nostalgia. "I remember it [November 5, 1955] vividly," he said. "I was standing on the edge of my toilet, hanging a clock. The porcelain was wet. I slipped and hit my head on the sink to my left. And when I came to, I had a revelation — a vision that was absolutely perfect — a picture in my head of everything I needed to do and how I could do it." / He gestured to the car. "Believe it or not, I saw this," he continued. "My dream or hallucination or whatever it was contained a picture of this." / "Amazing," Marty said, his eyes wide with sincerity. He knew the feeling. Once he had awakened during the middle of the night with the lyrics and melody of a new song literally playing inside his head. All that he had to do was find paper and take dictation. That was small potatoes compared to a scientific breakthrough such as the invention of time travel, but the emotional impact was similar. "

—From Back to the Future by George Gipe (quote, page 54)

November 5 is the 309th day of the year.

Events

Original Timeline

• 1955, Saturday:
  • Emmett Brown slips off his toilet while hanging a clock, and has a vision of the Flux capacitor, so sketches his vision.
  • Sherman Peabody reads a comic book called Tales from Space in his home Twin Pines Ranch.
  • Wilbur drives with his wife past the future Lyon Estates.
  • George McFly goes to Lou's Cafe and orders a Rice Krispies from Lou Carruthers, there he is bullied by Biff Tannen and his gang (Match, 3-D and Skinhead). He tells George to finish his homework by Monday so he has time to copy it. The cafe's busboy and future mayor of Hill Valley, Goldie Wilson, gives George advice on standing up for himself which he ignores.
  • George McFly watches Lorraine Baines get undressed from a tree, minutes later he gets hit by Sam Baines' car after falling from the tree.
• George wakes up and finds himself in Lorraine's bedroom, and the two fall in love.
• During dinner, George and the rest of the Baines family watch the The Honeymooners episode "The Man from Space". Sam is unfriendly towards George, and scolds him for being in the middle of the road.
• Emmett Brown makes another invention the Brain-wave analyzer, which he uses on his dog Copernicus.

Revised Timeline

• 1955, Saturday:
  • Marty McFly uses the DeLorean time machine to escape Libyan terrorists and accidentally travels back in time to the very day Dr. Emmett L. Brown conceived of the possibility of time travel: November 5, 1955. Marty arrives at the Twin Pines Ranch, where the Twin Pines Mall would someday stand, and crashes into Otis Peabody's barn.
  • Marty escapes gunshots and runs over one of the two pines at the entrance of the farm, resulting in the ranch's name changing to Lone Pine Ranch.
  • Marty drives onto a highway that passed by the future Lyon Estates.
  • Marty attempts to call Doc at Klondike 5-4385 and gets no answer.
  • Marty orders a coffee at Lou's Cafe and encounters his father George McFly.
• Marty follows George to Lorraine's street and saves him from being hit by Sam Baines' car.
  • Marty is hit by the car instead of George, changing history.
  • While hanging a clock in his home bathroom, Dr. Emmett Brown slips and hits his head on the porcelain sink and has an epiphany: a vision of the flux capacitor, which he theorises can make time travel possible. He is only able to realise his dream after 30 years of toil, and in 1985, he builds "a time machine out of a DeLorean".
  • Marty wakes up later that day in Lorraine's bedroom, who mistakes the name 'Calvin Klein' ("written all over [Marty's] underwear") as Marty's real name.
  • Marty has dinner with the Baines family, who help him find Emmett Brown's house.
  • Marty convinces Doc that he is from the future and they recover the car.
• 1963, Tuesday: Dave McFly is born.^[1]
• 1986G, Wednesday: First Citizen Brown finishes repairing the DeLorean and travels back to May 16.

Behind the scenes

• 1922, Sunday: Writer Bob Gale's father, attorney Mark R. Gale of St. Louis, was born. In his commentary to the first film, Bob Gale said that the choice of this date in the film script was just a coincidence. His father would have turned 33 years old on the day his film character Doc Brown discovered time travel in 1955.

Appearances

• Back to the Future
• Back to the Future novelization
• Back to the Future: The Story
• Back to the Future: The Card Game
• Back to the Future: The Game

Reference