Interesting History of Mysterious 11 missing days in September 1752 |
The change from Julian Calender to Gregorian Calender
In 325 A.D Nicene council officially adopted the 'Julian Calendar' which declared that 'a year would be 365 days and 6 hours long' and March 25th being the 'New year'. Many centuries passed and at last astronomers found out the flaw in Julian calendar, that the average length of a year is suppose to be only 365 days, 5 hours and 49 minutes, which exceeded the newly measured 'Solar year' by 11 minutes. In reality the 11 minutes difference is really not that big of a deal, but over a period of time from 325 A.D to 1582 A.D, that is 1300 years, it sure would be a huge deal. So on February 24, 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calendar, named as 'Gregorian Calendar'(papal bull)—a declaration from the leader of the Catholic Church—decreeing that those under the dominionship of his church would have to skip some days. Spain, large parts of Italy, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland and Lithuania all adopted Gregory’s bull the same year.
Britain had a large empire, and enough power to feel like it didn’t immediately need to cop to the Catholic calendar. But it all got rather confusing that people often wrote letters with two dates—one using the new Gregorian calendar, and the other using Julian calendar. Within the legislation, the government admitted that the old-style calendar had caused inconveniences, not only as it differed from the usage of neighboring nations, but also from the legal method of computation in Scotland, and from the common usage throughout the whole kingdom, and thereby frequent mistakes had occurred in the dates of deeds and other writings, and disputes aroused there from.
Eventually, Britain capitulated and instigated a NEW Calendar Act in 1750. In and throughout all its dominions and countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, belonging or subject to Great Britain, the act continued, that the 2nd day of September 1752 accounted to be the 14th day of September, 11 days of the common calendar.”
Another piece of history happened due to this switch. The workers worked for 11 days less that month, got paid for the whole month. YAYYY!!! That's exactly how the concept of "paid leave" was born.
Britain had a large empire, and enough power to feel like it didn’t immediately need to cop to the Catholic calendar. But it all got rather confusing that people often wrote letters with two dates—one using the new Gregorian calendar, and the other using Julian calendar. Within the legislation, the government admitted that the old-style calendar had caused inconveniences, not only as it differed from the usage of neighboring nations, but also from the legal method of computation in Scotland, and from the common usage throughout the whole kingdom, and thereby frequent mistakes had occurred in the dates of deeds and other writings, and disputes aroused there from.
Eventually, Britain capitulated and instigated a NEW Calendar Act in 1750. In and throughout all its dominions and countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, belonging or subject to Great Britain, the act continued, that the 2nd day of September 1752 accounted to be the 14th day of September, 11 days of the common calendar.”
Another piece of history happened due to this switch. The workers worked for 11 days less that month, got paid for the whole month. YAYYY!!! That's exactly how the concept of "paid leave" was born.
APRIL FOOLS DAY
In the Julian calendar, April was always used to be the first month of the year; but the Gregorian calendar observed January as its first month. Even after shifting, many people refused to give up on old traditions and continued celebrating 1st April as the New Year's Day. When simple orders didn't work, the King finally issued a royal dictum; which stated that those who celebrated 1st April as New Year would be labeled fools. From then on, 1st April became April Fool's Day.