On this day in 1752, Great Britain adopted the Gregorian Calendar, thus abandoning the Julian Calendar which it had been using for over 1700 years. This switch of systems meant of a loss of eleven days. The people of Great Britain (and its possessions, including the Original Thirteen American Colonies) went to sleep on Wednesday 2 September and woke-up the next morning, Thursday 14 September. For those who thought Y2K might be disruptive, the change to the Gregorian Calendar was truly a shake-up!
The older, Julian Calendar was adopted in 45 BC (under the dictator, Emperor Julius Caesar). It accounted for a 365 day year, plus a leap day every fourth year. Although this was fairly accurate, it was still 11 minutes and 14 seconds too long (per year). By 1582 (when the Gregorian Calendar was instituted), the calendar was already behind the natural seasons by ten days.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII instituted the new, Gregorian Calendar (which was adopted immediately by Catholic countries and their territories). The transfer from the Julian to the Gregorian required (in 1582) that the calendars jump-ahead by ten days. It also mandated that leap years were to be observed every four years except when they fall on a "round year" at the end of a century (like 1700, 1800 and 1900)—not counting those "round years" which are evenly divisible by 400 (like 1600, 2000 and 2400), in which case the leap year should be observed. The Gregorian Calendar is remarkably accurate, though it, too, is slightly off—by 26 seconds per year. This means that the calendar will need to be adjusted (by one day) every 3,236 years (next in the year 4909). I propose we just skip one leap day sometime shortly before the year 4909. Under the Julian system, the calendar lost one day every 129 years.
The Catholic world adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1582, including Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland-Lithuania, parts of Switzerland, and those parts of South America and the Caribbean governed by France, Portugal and Spain. Protestant Great Britain (which included what would become the United States) held-off for another 170 years—not wanting to concede to papal innovation. When Britain did change, on this day in 1752, they made no reference to Gregory or the Catholic Church. Rather, they called the new calendar "The New Style."
Eastern Orthodox Christian and Islamic countries waited even longer. It seems that World War I (or shortly thereafter) became the tipping point. Many Eastern countries came onboard in the Teens or Twenties. Today, no country uses the Julian Calendar for secular purposes, though many Orthodox and Islamic sects use the Julian Calendar to establish religious dates. Jews continue to use the Hebrew Calendar (codified in 359 AD) to calculate the dates of their religious festivals and observances.
The sandglass, shown above, was sand-cast of pewter in Italy. It measures (approximately) 30 minutes of time and is imprinted with a perpetual Roman calendar on the flat surfaces of the top and the bottom. Click on the photo above to learn more about this handsome timepiece.
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