2 September 22

Today is September 2nd. My tie shows solar bursts and calendar cycles. On this date in 1752, Britain and its colonies switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar (which we use today). Because the old calendar actually miscalculated the length of the year, the natural changing of the seasons and the astronomical events related to the seasons gradually fell away from the ordinary dates on the calendar. For example, the date for the vernal equinox marking the beginning of Spring drifted much later in March. This made it really hard to set the date for Easter! To make up for that, Pope Gregory had proclaimed a new calendar in 1582, and gradually governments across Europe adopted it. By 1752 – after roughly 1800 years of following the Julian system – the date for the vernal equinox marking the beginning of Spring had shifted from March 20 to March 31. In 1752 Great Britain made the switch. This required LOSING ELEVEN DAYS on the calendar – so, in 1752, “tomorrow” suddenly became 14 September. For people living in that time there was great confusion, but they didn’t have anything like our electronic systems that would need incredible reprogramming. If you see a birthday written as 3 September 1752, it’s fake! That date never existed. You’ll sometimes see dates printed today with the letters “O.S.” to indicate that they are related to the Julian calendar being used in that region at that time. So Happy Calendar Changing Day!