Biff's Almanac

Fifty years of scores turned into a lifetime of corruption.

Biff Tannen's Sports Almanac is a deceptively mundane paperback that became the catalyst for one of history's most drastic temporal shifts. Containing the results of major sporting events from 1950 to 2000, this artifact allowed its owner to bypass chance and secure a fortune. Handed by the elderly Biff Tannen to his younger self, it transformed Hill Valley into a chaotic dystopia where he became one of the country's wealthiest men. The book served as the bridge between two timelines, enabling Biff to alter his past and destroy the McFly family's future until Marty McFly intervened to restore the natural order.

Quick Facts

Content scope: Sports results from 1950 to 2000
Date of transfer: November 12, 1955

Lore & Background

The Almanac contained no magical properties; its power derived entirely from the absolute certainty of future sports outcomes. Biff used this data to amass a fortune, turning Hill Valley into a chaotic dystopia where he secretly killed George McFly in 1973 and forced Lorraine to marry him while sending Marty to boarding school in Switzerland. In this alternate timeline, Doc Brown was committed to a mental hospital. The artifact's influence relied on the specific date of its transfer: November 12, 1955. Once young Biff received the book from his future self, he acted on the advice to secure his wealth, creating a timeline where he ruled with an iron fist until the original history was restored.

Reader's Guide

To undo the almanac's effects, Marty and Doc travel back to November 12, 1955, the day young Biff received it. In this instance, the book was recovered from young Biff just before he could use it to alter history permanently. The destruction of the physical copy is critical; Marty burned the almanac while Doc Brown hovered above in the DeLorean. This action immediately nullified the changes, dissolving the alternate 1985 and restoring the original timeline where George was alive and Biff was not a wealthy tyrant. Without the book, the chain of events leading to the dystopia could not sustain itself.