It's hardly a secret that 3D Realms had its own share of issues with getting Duke Nukem Forever out in a timely manner. In fact, there's a really good retrospective that sheds some pretty specific light on what made the game more or less twiddle its thumbs while waiting for a release date. Less often discussed, though, is what was going on elsewhere in both the industry and the world at large in that same span. That's where this site comes in, which, further down the page, compiles both a number of events that happened within the span of Duke Nukem Forever's developer and things throughout history that didn't take as long to accomplish. Here are some of my personal favorites from the list, which I find does a really good job at putting the debacle into perspective:
 

• All three Star Wars prequels were filmed, released in theaters, and put on DVD in the time it took Duke Nukem Forever to be announced and subsequently cancelled.
• Since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever Microsoft has released DirectX5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9.0c, 10, 10.1, and announced DirectX 11.
• Every Nintendo system from the GameBoy Color to DS Lite was released within that period.
• Team Fortress 2, another shooter which took a seeming eternity to come out, actually got unleashed on the masses.
  
• WWII and the entirety of the Manhattan Project, which eventually produced the atomic bomb, took up less time than Duke Nukem Forever's lifespan.