If you were living in England or one of the American colonies 265 years ago, this day did not exist. When you went to bed last night, it was September 2. This morning when you got up, it was September 14.
The “Julian” calendar adopted in 46BC, miscalculated the solar year by 11 minutes per year, resulting in a built-in error of 1 day for every 128 years. By the late 16th century, the seasonal equinoxes were ten days out of sync, and that was causing a problem with the holiest days of the Catholic church.
In 1579, Pope Gregory XIII commissioned the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius, to devise a new calendar and correct this “drift”. The “Gregorian” calendar was adopted in 1582, omitting ten days from that October, and changing the manner in which “leap” years were calculated.
The Catholic countries of Europe were quick to adopt the Gregorian calendar. England and its overseas colonies continued to use the Julian calendar well into the 18th century, resulting in immense confusion. Legal contracts, civic calendars, and the payments of rents and taxes were all complicated by the two calendar system. Military campaigns were won or lost, due to confusion over dates.
Between 1582 and 1752, some English and colonial records included both the “Old Style” and “New Style” year. The system was known as “double dating”, and resulted in date notations such as March 19, 1602/3. Others merely changed dates. Google “George Washington’s birthday”, for instance, and you’ll be informed that the father of our country was born on February 22, 1732. The man was actually born on February 11, 1731, under the Julian Calendar. It was only after 1752 that Washington himself recognized the date of his birth as February 22, 1732, reflecting the Gregorian Calendar.
Tragically, the number of historians’ and geneologists’ heads to have since exploded, remains unknown.
The “Calendar Act of 1750” set out a two-step process for adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Since the Roman calendar began on March 25, the year 1751 was to have only 282 days so that January 1 could be synchronized with that date. That left 11 days to deal with.
So it was decreed that Wednesday, September 2, 1782, would be followed by Thursday, September 14.
You can read about “calendar riots” around this time, though they may be little more than a late Georgian-era urban myth.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, was a prime sponsor of the calendar measure. His use of the word “Mobs” was probably a description of the bill’s opponents in Parliament. Even so, there were those who believed their lives were being shortened by those 11 days, and others who considered the Gregorian calendar to be a “Popish Plot”. The subject would become a very real campaign issue between Tories and Whigs, in 1754.
There’s a story concerning one William Willett, who lived in Endon. Willett wagered that he could dance non-stop for 12 days and 12 nights, starting his jig about town the evening of September 2nd 1752. He stopped the next morning, and went out to collect his bets. I was unable to determine, how many actually paid up.
The official start of the British tax year was changed in 1753, so as not to “lose” those 11 days of tax revenue. Revolution was still 23 years away in the American colonies, but the reaction “across the pond” could not have been one of unbridled joy.
Turkey was the last country to formally adopt the Gregorian calendar, doing so in 1927.
Benjamin Franklin seems to have liked the idea, writing that, “It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.”
The Gregorian calendar gets ahead of the solar cycle by 26 seconds every year, despite some very clever methods of synchronizing the two cycles. Several hours have already been added, and it will be a full day ahead by the year 4909.
I wonder how Mr. Franklin would feel, to wake up and find that it’s still yesterday.
British authorities demanded that Khalid order his forces to stand down and leave the palace. Instead, the new Sultan called up his palace guard and barricaded himself inside.
Loch Ness is formed by a 60 mile, active tectonic fault, where the hills are still rising at a rate of 1mm per year. It’s made up of 3 lochs; Loch Lochy, Loch Oich and Loch Ness, with Loch Ness being by far the largest. There is more water in Loch Ness than all the other lakes in England, Scotland and Wales, combined. It is 22½ miles long and varies from a mile to 1½ miles wide, with a depth of 754′ and a bottom “as flat as a bowling green”.
An entire study called “Cryptozoology” (literally, the study of hidden animals) has sprung up around Nessie and other beasts whose existence is never quite proven, and never completely debunked. There is Big Foot, who seems to have made it to stardom with his own series of beef jerky commercials. You have the Chupacabra, the Yeti, Ogopogo, Vermont’s own Lake Champlain monster, “Champ”, and more.
White found himself trapped in England by the invasion of the Spanish Armada, and the Anglo-Spanish war. It would be three years before he could return to Roanoke. He arrived on August 18, 1590, three years to the day from the birth of his granddaughter. He found the place deserted, only the word “CROATOAN” carved into a fence post. The letters “CRO” were carved into a nearby tree.
White had hopes of finding his family at Croatoan, the home of Chief Manteo’s people to the south, on modern day Hatteras Island.
Seventeen years later, another group of colonists would apply the lessons learned in Roanoke, founding their own colony a few miles up the coast at a place called Jamestown.
One of the more profoundly silly bits of pop culture nonsense served up in the recent past, may be the world coming to an end on 12/21/12, according to the Mayan calendar. The calendar itself isn’t silly, it’s actually a very sophisticated mathematical construct, but the end of the world part certainly was.
The Mayans used three separate calendars, each period represented by its own glyph. The Long Count was mainly used for historical purposes, able to specify any date within a 2,880,000 day cycle, about 7,885 solar years. The Haab was a civil calendar, consisting of 18 months of 20 days, and one 5-day Uayeb, a nameless period rounding out the 365-day year. The Tzolkin was the “divine” calendar, used mainly for ceremonial and religious purposes. Consisting of 20 periods of 13 days, the Tzolkin goes through a complete cycle every 260 days. The significance of this cycle is unknown, though it may be connected with the 263 day orbit of Venus. There is no year in the Haab or Tzolkin calendars, though a Haab and Tzolkin date may be combined to specify a particular day within a 52-year cycle.
It doesn’t really roll over to “zero”, either. The base 20 numerical system means that 12/22/12 begins the next 400 year (actually 394.3 years) period to begin the 13th Bak’tun. It will reset to zero at the end of the 20th Bak’tun, about 3,000 years from now. Please let me know how that turns out.
The November 7, 1969, Life magazine interview with McCartney and his wife Linda finally put the story to rest. “Perhaps the rumor started because I haven’t been much in the press lately“, he said. “I have done enough press for a lifetime, and I don’t have anything to say these days. I am happy to be with my family and I will work when I work. I was switched on for ten years and I never switched off. Now I am switching off whenever I can. I would rather be a little less famous these days“.
More shooting incidents occurred in the days that followed. Objections to the whiskey tax gave way to a long list of economic grievances, as over 7,000 gathered in Braddock’s Field on August 1. They talked of secession and carried their own flag, each of its six stripes representing one of 6 Pennsylvania or eastern Ohio counties.
The whiskey rebellion collapsed in the face of what was then an overwhelming army, with 10 of their leaders brought to Philadelphia to stand trial. Two were sentenced to hang for their role in the rebellion, but President Washington pardoned them both. The whiskey rebellion was over.
Private Marr asked for and received permission to bring Jackie along with him. It wasn’t long before the monkey became the official Regimental Mascot.
An emergency landing on open ocean is not an option with such a large aircraft. It would have broken up on impact with the probable loss of all hands. Descending rapidly, the crew would have jettisoned everything they could lay hands on, to reduce weight. Non-essential equipment would have gone first, then excess fuel, but it wasn’t enough. With only 2,500ft and losing altitude, there was no choice left but to jettison those atomic bombs.
Historical Easter Eggs - Today in History 
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