The entire Britain went to sleep on September 2, 1752, and woke up on September 14. How is this possible. Yes! It is.
In the beginning Britons were using Roman Julian Calendar, you may wonder and ask someone "Calendar is universal rite?". Don't even I thought the same way. They felt that they didn't sync with the rest of the world and they need to catch back up. Here is a question. How did the lost the sync with the world. It goes back 170 years prior to 1752.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII was 10 years into his reign as leader of the Catholic church. He had a problem with Easter. The Julian calendar that the church used at the time measured a year as 365 days and 6 hours long, but according to rest of the world it is 365 days and 5 hours and 49 minutes. It was so close but not right. They thought that just 11 minutes is not going to make any difference. Eventually they lost the track time with rest of the world.
They have to change their calendar system not. So they thought they can shift from Roman Julian calendar to Gregorian calendar. In Gregorian calendar the date is 11 days advanced from them, So the king ordered to wipe off the 11 days from the calendar. In that month people of britain worked 11 days less that month but got paid for the entire 30 days. This is how the concept of paid leave emerged!
In Roman Julian Calendar, April 1 used to be the new year, as they shifted to Gregorian calendar new year is on January 1, but many people refused to change their tradition and they wanted to celebrate the new year on April 1. King finally issued a royal dictum which says that people who celebrate the new year on April 1 are fools. This is how now we celebrate April one as fools day.
Damn..! History you are interesting.
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