A black hole in history-11 days form 3 to 13 September 1752

by V. V. Sugunan, New Delh India

How many people were born on 3rd September 1752? If you find it difficult to answer this
question, not to worry, the answer is simple: “None” and this answer holds good for the next
10 days too. Yes, you believe it or not, there are no birthdays for 11 days from 3 rd to 13th
September 1752. How come nobody was born on these days? If this is not weird enough,
imagine a man in London writing a love-laced letter to his fiancée bearing the dateline
Wednesday, 2 September 1752 and his sweetheart promptly writes a reply the very next day.
But her letter pad bears the date as 14 September 1752. Yes, these 11 days are the black hole
in history; nothing happened during these eventless dates. No births, no deaths, no wars, no
pacts and no nothing. In fact, these dates do not exist in history at all. But why? All due to a
correction made to the then Julian calendar, based on reforms introduced by Pope Gregory
XIII, through a decree signed on 24 February 1582. The reformed calendar, known as
Gregorian calendar, was adopted later that year by a handful of countries, but it took
centuries before other countries adopted it. It was in September 1752, that many countries
including Britain, USA and their colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in place of Julian
calendar. During the change over in 1752, a correction was needed, because due the
inaccurate system of calculating the leap year, too many leap days were added with respect to
the astronomical seasons on the Julian scheme.

A provision of adding a leap day to February every leap year (once in four years) existed in
the previous Julian calendar too. But this was not good enough. Julian calendar had 365.25
days in a year, but the astronomical solstices and the equinoxes advanced by about 11
minutes on an average against this Julian year. As a result, the calendar was off the mark by
11 minutes every year and the Church had difficulties in calculating date of Easter, which
gradually moved out of phase with the March equinox. While ancient calendar makers
(Hipparchus and presumably Sosigenes) were aware of the discrepancy, albeit not of its
correct value, at the time of the Julian reform, but they thought it was of little importance.
Over the years, it was found to be of importance as the Julian calendar gained a day about
every 134 years. By 1582 AD, it was 13,827 minutes (ten days) out of alignment from where
it supposedly was in 325 AD and by 1752 AD, the Julian calendar was 15,697 minutes, i.e.,
11 days ahead of time. This was corrected while adopting the Gregorian calendar in 1752 by
removing 11 days, 3 to 13 September.

Gregorian calendar that we follow today corrected the anomaly by stipulating that every year
that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by
100; but the centurial years that are exactly divisible by 400 are still leap years. This is why
the year 1900 was not a leap year and the year 2000 was a leap year.

Months and their lengths

Many in the past seemed to have fiddled with the months not only by altering their names but
distributing days among them too. There are several theories about the evolution of months
and their days. According to Sacrobosco, the Roman Republican Calendar had 354 days
spread among 12 months that were equivalent to the present-day January to December;
alternate months having 29 and 30 days as: 30, 29, 30, 29, 30, 29, 30, 29, 30, 29, 30 and 29
days respectively. Julius Caesar added one day to every month except February (adding a
total of 11 more days), making the year 365 days as: 31, 29/30, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 30,
31, and 30. A leap day was added to February during leap years. Then comes Augustus
Caesar who lengthened August by a day at the cost of February making it: 31, 28/29, 31, 30,
31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, and 31, allegedly to satisfy his personal ego (how come the month
with my name is shorter than that of Julius!). Although this theory of Augustus Caesar’s
personal vendetta is challenged and discounted by many historians, this distribution of days
holds good even today.

Tail piece: The Gregorian way of calculating the leap year still leaves some very minute
error, which is considered as too minute to matter. Then that was what makers of Julian
calendar thought on those days too. Hope someone will correct it at a future date.