The Julian calendar was commissioned by (as you might expect) Julius Caesar in 46 BC. It had the familiar 365 ¼ days - and was wrong. That's close to the solar year, but not quite right.
Fifteen hundred years later, it was obvious that the calendar was drifting. Pope Gregory XIII commissioned a replacement called (oddly enough) the Gregorian calendar. That's the one that we use today, and it has additional rules about leap years - when you have one, and when you don't. Who knows, maybe in a few thousand years there will need to be a replacement.
The only remaining problem, back in 1582 when His Holiness' new calendrical hotness was installed, was that dates had drifted, and the spring equinox was off by nearly 2 weeks. To correct this, 10 days were deleted from the calendar that year.
October 11 was one of those days. In 1582, it just didn't exist. Makes you wonder how you counted birthdays for people born that day.
4 comments:
My youngest daughter's birthday is today. Does this mean I can take her present back?
LOL, interesting train of thought there my friend... :-)
The skip didn't occur until 1752 here in the Colonies, where September went from the 2nd to the 14th overnight. Reportedly there were riots by people who didn't want to pay a full month's rent for the short month.
There are many days I don't remember from when I was at WVU. I thought it was the alcohol but maybe they just never were...
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