Calendar Adjustment Day – September 2, 2024

History of Calendar Adjustment Day

After the British Calendar Act of 1751, the Gregorian Calendar was adopted by Britain in 1752. But shifting and aligning with the new calendar was not that simple — it required omitting 11 days for synchronization with the proposed Gregorian Calendar. The residents of Britain and the American colonies went to sleep at night on September 2, 1752, and woke up the next day to September 14, 1752. This change also led to New Year’s Day being celebrated on January 1. Those 11 days are lost forever in time.

The calendar adjustment wasn’t taken too well by the public, who felt cheated and demanded to have their 11 days back. It was necessary to skip these 11 days in September so that Britain could align with the Julian calendar, like most of Europe.

Many historians claim that the change in calendar led to rioting and civil unrest, demanding “Give us our 11 days.” Many people also believed that their lives were shortened by 11 days. The moving of some holy days and holidays like Easter was also seen as suspicious and the new dates were considered “incorrect.”

To avoid confusion, colonial records use the terminologies ‘Old Style’ and ‘New Style’ to differentiate between dates in history. These dates are denoted by using a slash mark (/).

The changeover involved a number of different steps. First, the last day of the month, December 31, 1750, was succeeded by January 1, 1750. Before, December was the 10th month in the Old Style calendar, and January was the 11th. Next, changes were made to March 24. Previously, March 25 was considered the start of the New Year in the Old Style calendar. The next change was January 1, 1752 following December 31, 1751. As stated before, the new year started with March 25 in the Old Style year. Lastly, September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752. This is the part where 11 days from the year were omitted.