Interresting quirk in cal? (1752)

[Bob Goudreau]

In article <17634 at rochester.ARPA> ken at rochester.UUCP (Ipse dixit) writes:
>In article <500 at codas.ATT.UUCP> mikel at codas.ATT.UUCP (Mikel Manitius) writes:
>>Someone just pointed this out to me, look at the month of September
>>on this calander produced by "cal" for 1752 on a 3B2/400 SVR2:
>>	 Jul			Aug		       Sep
>> S  M Tu  W Th  F  S    S  M Tu  W Th  F  S    S  M Tu  W Th  F  S
>>          1  2  3  4                      1          1  2 14 15 16
>> 5  6  7  8  9 10 11    2  3  4  5  6  7  8   17 18 19 20 21 22 23
>>12 13 14 15 16 17 18    9 10 11 12 13 14 15   24 25 26 27 28 29 30
>
>It is not a bug. September 1752 was the month leap centuries were added
>to the Gregorian calendar. By edict 12 days were deleted from the month
>to make up for the discrepancy the calendar had accumulated over the
>centuries. This prompted cries of "give us back our 12 days". This was
>only in England. Many other European countries did not adjust until
>later, in fact Russia not until early this century.  I remember Asimov
>has an entertaining discussion of this in one of his books.

Actually, most of Western Europe had already made the conversion centuries
before Great Britain and its colonies did in 1752.  The new calendar is
named Gregorian, after Pope Gregory, who ordered the first change since
the time of Julius Caesar (whence came "Julian").  Since the Pope was not
much appreciated in Britain at the time, it took a while to convince the
King and Parliament to adhere to the new standard.

Bob Goudreau