

The Ten Days that Disappeared - edw519
http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/10/1008gregorian-calendar-skips-days/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

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dedward
Something most readers are probably already aware of, but I found this post
interesting as I'd never considered what the acutal social, economic,
political, etc, ramifications were for the world when this happens.... I'v
previously always thought of the in purely academic terms "Yeah, that was a
good move, makes sense. Good for the Pope."

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wolfhumble
Certainly makes the IPv4 to IPv6 transition look like a walk in the park . . .

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fr0sty
Other interesting date facts:

February 30th actually happened. In Sweden in 1712:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_30>

Friday followed Friday. In Alaska in 1867:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Date_Line#Histori...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Date_Line#Historical_alterations)

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btilly
The Unix cal program uses the switch in Britain for this shift.

cal 9 1752

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Dylan16807
I don't understand why they didn't instead drop the next few leap days. How
impatient can you be when cathedrals may take centuries to build?

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fr0sty
Spreading the change over 40 years ran the risk of having a new pope reversing
the decision. Sweden tried to do it this way and failed.[1]

I would also suspect that vanity played some role. If you start the slow
transition you don't get a new calendar named after you.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_30#Swedish_calendar>

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dmlorenzetti
Dershowitz & Reingold's "Calendrical Calculations" touches on this. The book
goes describes how to represent calendars, and how to convert between them
(Gregorian, Julian, Ethiopian, Islamic, Hebrew, Hindu, Mayan, and French
Revolution, among others). Includes Lisp code!

