Did you know that the British Empire 'deleted' 11 days from its history?

In the 18th century, the British Empire had to perform an action that erased a few days from its calendar and its history. Eleven days were sent to “limbo” so that the entire region of Great Britain would fit the Gregorian calendar, which was already being widely used in most of Western Europe.

This happened in the year 1752, when, to align their dates with neighboring countries, the British had to remove those days, more precisely from 3 to 13 September. These are now "ghost days" that always haunt historians and genealogists when dealing with the confusion of dates.

According to S. Grant's article in the Knowledge Nuts, for eleven days of September 1752, no one was born and no one died in the British Isles or any of the English colonies. In reality, nothing has happened, but not because of some cosmic change in time or some other such phenomenon, but simply because the calendar has been rearranged from Julian to Gregorian.

(Note that the Gregorian calendar was promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and immediately adopted by Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and subsequently by all Western countries.)

These eleven days have been omitted from British history, and obviously this has caused a bit of trouble and dissatisfaction on the part of the population. According to some reports recorded at the time, although they may seem exaggerated, people still rioted on the streets with allegations that the government was "stealing days from their lives."

Confusion, Delay, and Rearranged Special Dates

In addition to setting aside eleven days from the year 1752, the people had to accept that the year 1751 was also about three months shorter. All because, in preparation for taking on the Gregorian calendar, England also had to change its New Year.

The English government considered the first day of March 25 (Julian calendar) and they had to advance to January 1, as is the first day of the Gregorian year. Thus, December 31, 1751 was followed by January 1, 1752 (instead of remaining 1751 until March 25, as was usual).

Despite all the complaints, riots and problems in forgetting and getting rid of their old calendar, the British Parliament considered that they had no other choice, as they were already far behind with the change from neighboring countries. And it was no small delay, since most of Western Europe had already accepted the Gregorian calendar 170 years earlier, shortly after Pope Gregory XIII's amendment.

Differences

To give you an idea of ​​the time between these two calendars - which you may not think is much, but it makes a difference - the Julian version calculates a year to be 365 days and six hours long, when it is actually closer. 365 days, five hours and 49 minutes.

Although the difference is only 11 minutes, over time, this little time has started to mess things up. One was Easter, which was 10 days away from the spring equinox, an unacceptable difference for the Catholic Church. For this and other reasons, in 1582 the Pope eliminated 10 days of the year and decreed that everyone should use the Gregorian calendar.

But there came the tantrum of the British (mostly Protestant except for a part of Ireland that was in favor of Catholicism) against Catholics. They thought they were too powerful to give in to the wishes of the Pope, and by that time had completed about 50 years of the founding of the Anglican Church, facts that generated resistance to the change of calendar.

But 170 years later, they finally accepted the new Gregorian format, as most of the population already had to use two calendars, two dates of birth, double-date marriage documents, two New Year's days, among other confusions.

Still, aligning your dates with the rest of Western Europe has not completely eliminated the mess. Even today, historians and genealogists have to pay close attention to which system was used when a document was recorded on the "old date" or the most recent calendar.

* Originally posted on 11/22/2014.