From the ‘Unix time is its own time zone‘ files:
At 6:31:30 PM (EST) today, Unix time will equal ‘1234567890’. That number is the number of seconds (so 1.23 billion) since the beginning of the Unix epoch on 00:00:00, Jan. 1, 1971.
Neat.
I will admit that at various points in my career I’ve used Unix time to stump non-admins about time issue (yeaah i know it’s not that funny!). But hey a log file is a log file and my default time stamps weren’t Eastern Standard.
Today’s numerical milestone is a once in a lifetime event and one that is being celebrated at parties around the world today.