The following is from today's Everton's Family History Newsline. I found it interesting. Hope many of you will, too. Marilyn "Mel" Nickless ================================== Tuesday, 14 September 1999 This Day in History: 14 September 1752 We talk about the "millenium bug" and fear (or look forward to) the coming of a new year, numbered 2000, scheduled to make its arrival in about three and a half months. But the calendar on which this particular numerology is based is not 2,000 years old, or even 500 years old. And in some cases its implementation is less than a lifespan. Astronomers and other earth-watchers had realized for some time that the Roman Julian calendar was a bit off, failing to take into account the true cycle of the earth and its orbit. So in the sixteenth century they persuaded the current pope (who just happened to be named Gregory) to accept their update to the European calendar system, which he did. But implementation of the new Gregorian Calendar was hardly universal, and even its civil acceptance was not without revolt. For example, when the new system was enacted in Britain and its colonies (including those in North America) in 1752, a few days had to be "dropped" (excluded, ignored, forgotten, misplaced, whatever), meaning that the sun set on 2 September 1752, but rose the next day on 14 September 1752. If that happened today a lot of people would think it was a riot. Two and a half centuries ago a lot of people did. Riot, that is. The government had "cheated" them out of eleven days, and they didn't think they should take that lying down. Eventually the idea of the new calendar took hold, even though certain computer programmers seem to have missed out on the basics of the concept. While 1752 was the date of the Great Calendar Switchover for many English-speaking nations, other countries joined the fun on their own schedule. By the end of the eighteenth century most European nations and their overseas connections had come on board, but the Russian Empire steadfastly refused to update, and the task of calendar conversion was left until 1918 and the new socialist regime. Greece finally joined the party (officially, at least) in 1923. Resources: Calendars http://astro.nmsu.edu/~lhuber/leaphist.html Calendar Conversions http://genealogy.org/~scottlee/calconvert.cgi English Calendar http://www.albion.edu/fac/engl/calendar/ Virtual Perpetual Calendars http://www.mnsinc.com/utopia/Calendar/Virtual_Calendars.html Copyright 1999, Everton Publishers All rights reserved - ------------------------------------------------------------------