THE BRITISH EMPIRE ADOPTED THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR 272 YEARS AGO

The present calendar, called the Gregorian calendar, was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582 to replace the Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC.
“The principal change was to space leap years differently so as to make the average calendar year 365.2425 days long.”
All Catholic countries adopted the new calendar. Others rejected it.
Britain (and her colonies) saw the new change as another papal strategy of dominating others and thus refused to adopt it till 1752.
To adopt the Gregorian calendar, “it was decided that Wednesday 2nd September 1752 would be followed by Thursday 14th September 1752.”
By adopting the new calendar, 11 days were “lost”
The change affected salaries, disrupted house rent agreements, contracts, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
An unconfirned history said that this gave rise to street protests where the people were chanting: give us back our eleven days.
To adapt to the new calendar, the Christmas day was moved from 06/07 January back to December 25.
A serious opponent to the Christmas day change was the Orthodox Church which still uses the old calendar to celebrate Christmas to date.
Angelo Chidi Unegbu
Angelo Chidi Unegbu
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