What Date Did Natasha Romanoff Really Die? Fact-Checking Avengers Endgame Timeline Confusion

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Summary

Fans determined that Natasha Romanoff's death in Avengers: Endgame occurred on Oct. 16, 2023, based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki's timeline and the heroes' time-traveling adventures.
The Oct. 16 date is not official and was chosen by the moderators of the MCU wiki based on small clues and references within the MCU. They acknowledge that it is not an official date.
Natasha's grave in the post-credit scene of Black Widow does not have birth or death dates to avoid disrupting continuity and the complex timeline of the MCU. Her death in Endgame was a sacrifice in the past for the present, making it more complicated than a single date.

Natasha Romanoff's death in Avengers: Endgame is one of the saddest moments in the entire MCU, but when exactly her sacrifice occurs can be a bit difficult to figure out. As she was one of the earliest heroes to debut in the franchise and a member of the 6 original Avengers, her death held a lot of weight, both resonating with audiences and motivating the surviving team members to exact their revenge on Thanos that much harder. Because Endgame is set in the year 2023, fans have tried to match the dates of events in the movie to dates in reality, analyzing how the real-world timeline compares to that of the MCU.
Determining specific dates for Endgame's events is not straightforward, however, as the main plot centers on the Avengers going on a Time Heist to retrieve the Infinity Stones, bringing them back to the present and mixing up the MCU timeline. As such, for a large portion of the movie, the superheroes were scattered throughout a time period spanning over 50 years and were at vastly different points in the galaxy, all in an effort to find the stones. Fans seem to have figured out what specific date Natasha's death falls on, however, so it is important to understand how they came to this conclusion.
Your browser does not support the video tag. How Fans Determined Oct. 16 As The Date Of Natasha Romanoff's Death In Endgame

Fans have determined that Natasha died on Oct. 16, 2023, and they have the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki website to thank for it. An exhaustive 2023 timeline on the MCU Wiki places the date of the Time Heist as Oct. 16. Due to the way time-traveling through the Quantum Realm functions, the amount of time that each hero spends in the past translates to a small amount of time spent away from the present. Because Natasha died during her mission and did not return with the rest of the team, MCU wiki, and subsequently fans, have decided that her death date is Oct. 16.
What's important to note is this date is not official and was determined by the moderators of the MCU wiki. Based on a number of small clues across the MCU, including a line in Spider-Man: Far From Home claiming everyone was brought back 8 months before the end of June, the Wiki moderators placed the Time Heist and Blip on this specific day in October. One moderator, who posts on X (formerly known as Twitter) under the handle @bejt_t, refers to themself as the site's "head of timeline work." They confirmed that the date set for Natasha's death is not official in a recent Tweet. Read the full Tweet below.
Why Natasha Romanoff's Grave Doesn't Have Dates In Black Widow's Credits Scene

In the post-credit scene of Black Widow, Natasha's grave noticeably does not have any birth or death dates on it. Because so many dates and ages are ambiguous in the MCU, had the movie decided to officially mark when Natasha was born and died, it could have risked disrupting MCU continuity and messing up the timeline. Also, Natasha's actual death in Avengers: Endgame is much more complicated than the Oct. 16 date. She sacrificed herself so Clint Barton could retrieve the Soul Stone from Vormir in 2014, so she technically died in the past even though she was acting on behalf of the present.
Sources: Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki, @bejt_t/X (formerly known as Twitter)
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