Better late than never.
On Tuesday, the New York Times corrected a 161-year-old story after a reader noticed that the newspaper had misspelled the name of the man whose life events inspired the Oscar-winning film, “12 Years a Slave.”
The Times admitted the gaffe after it was brought to their attention by a reader perusing the paper’s archive that a story from Jan. 20, 1853, misspelled Solomon Northup’s name.
The Times explained that its 19th century story about Northup, a free man from New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery, incorrectly referred to him as Northrop in the body of the article, while the headline called him Northrup.
“The errors came to light Monday after a Twitter user pointed out the article in The Times archive,” the correction read.
One of the Twitter users who also noticed the mistake is New York Times bestselling author, Rebecca Skloot.
“The irony, of course, is that I’m a terrible speller and proofreader,” she tweeted after learning of the correction.