Posted on 02/01/2016 10:37:29 AM PST by SunkenCiv
This Monday is the federal holiday Washington's Birthday, better known as Presidents Day, celebrated on the third Monday of February. If you want to know the actual birth date of George Washington, you will find two dates: Feb. 22, 1732, and Feb. 11, 1731. Both dates are correct.
What accounts for the discrepancy? When Washington was born, Britain and its colonies were using the Julian calendar. Developed in first century B.C. under Julius Caesar, it had three too many leap days per 400-year period. The Catholic Church corrected the error in the 16th century by introducing a modified calendar (the Gregorian calendar) and skipping 10 days.
The Gregorian calendar was soon adopted by Catholic nations, but non-Catholic nations, such as Britain, were slower to change. The British calendar was also unique in the fact that it began its year on March 25 rather than January 1.
Britain amended its calendar in 1751 and 1752. First, it decreed that 1752 begin on Jan. 1 rather than March 25, meaning that the year 1751 lasted only nine months and 1752 lasted 15 months. It then adjusted to the Gregorian calendar by dropping 11 days in September 1752 (Sept. 3-13).
Historians usually adjust dates in the Julian calendar to correspond to the modern calendar, thereby creating a discrepancy in Washington's birth date and other historical dates. In the most famous example, Russia's Bolshevik Revolution of November 1919 is known as the October Revolution because Russia was still using the Julian calendar.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.findingdulcinea.com ...
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http://www.adsb.co.uk/date_and_time/calendar_reform_1752/
Calendar Reform in England, 1752
It is widely known that in September 1752, Great Britain switched from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar. In order to achieve the change, 11 days were ‘omitted’ from the calendar - i.e. the day after 2 September 1752 was 14 September 1752.
This change was as a result of an Act of Parliament - the “Calendar Act” of 1751 An Act for Regulating the Commencement of the Year; and for Correcting the Calendar now in Use.
What isn’t so widely known is a second change which the Act introduced - as named in the first part of the Act’s title. The Act changed the first day of the year (or, if you want to impress your friends with a new word, the Supputation of the Year).
Prior to 1752 in England, the year began on 25 March (Lady Day). Lady Day is one of the Quarter Days, which are still used in legal circles. The Quarter Days divide the year in quarters (hence the name :-), and the Quarter Days are: Lady Day (25 March), Midsummers Day (24 June), Michaelmas Day (29 September), and Christmas Day (25 December).
So, in England, the day after 24 March 1642 was 25 March 1643. The Act changed this, so that the day after 31 December 1751 was 1 January 1752. As a consequence, 1751 was a short year - it ran only from 25 March to 31 December.
To throw some more confusion on the issue, Scotland had changed the first day of the year to 1 January in 1600 (in 1600, Scotland was a separate kingdom). When King James VI of Scotland became also King James I of England in 1603, the possibilities of date confusion must have been very large.
Historians have to be on their toes with dates prior to 1752. For example, in The Tower of London there is some graffiti scratched into a cell wall by someone imprisoned in January 1642 for his role in the Battle of Edgehill (which took place on 23 October 1642).
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George Washington Feb. 11th
Abraham Lincoln Feb 12th
Ronald Reagan Feb 6th
1919 --> 1917.
In the autobiography of Casanova, he recounts visiting with Catherine the Great and giving her the arguments for converting to the Gregorian calendar. I guess he wasn't persuasive enough.
Both dates would need to be in the same year, either 1731 or 1732, but not both. There has never been more than two week’s difference between the Julian and the Gregorian calendars.
And we were worried about Y2K?
:’) The US gov page on Washington’s birthday completely schlonged the part about the calendar change.
/bingo
because he was born again?
Nope. The beginning of the year had previously been in March — hence, GW’s February birthday got bumped forward a year as well. It’s explained up there I believe, unless I excerpted out that part of the explanation.
Just be glad there weren’t preppers back then.
Identity theft. Even then.
The Russian Revolution was in 1917 no matter which calendar (Julian or Gregorian) you use.
BTW, all, there are genealogists who have developed nice research about this, in the main because various countries changed over at various times, and in the case of, I believe it was, Sweden, they kept changing their minds about it.
That’s what wideminded said up there. The Bolshevik takeover, which destroyed the Revolution, also took place in 1917.
You can have Lincoln. I’d replace his position with Calvin Coolidge who had an even more significant birthday of July 4.
Fascinating.
From the royal web site -
The Queen celebrates two birthdays each year: her actual birthday on 21 April and her official birthday on a Saturday in June.
Official celebrations to mark Sovereigns’ birthday have often been held on a day other than the actual birthday, particularly when the actual birthday has not been in the summer. King Edward VII, for example, was born on 9 November, but his official birthday was marked throughout his reign in May or June when there was a greater likelihood of good weather for the Birthday Parade, also known as Trooping the Colour.
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