BS: February 31st

Subject: February 31st
From: Megan L
Date: 03 Jan 01 - 05:35 PM

Totally non music but I thought if anyone would know it would be some smart cat. While visiting tonight we got onto the subject of a grave in Kirkwall,Orkney which gives the date of death as the 31st of february-none of can remember the year.

This is always a cause of speculation and mirth, but I seemed to remember being told that there was a year when days were added to the calander something to do with losing time on the earths rotation or some such thing.

Can anyone confirm such a thing to hve happened or at least prove what my friends now think.

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: mousethief
Date: 03 Jan 01 - 05:38 PM

i'm with the friends. I think it's a gag, or possibly shorthand for "we know not which day."

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: catspaw49
Date: 03 Jan 01 - 05:45 PM

Falls just after the twelth of never I think.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Allan C.
Date: 03 Jan 01 - 07:20 PM

Five months before the thirty-second of Juvember (when the fall beans are ripe)...

The only stretching of the calendar I know about happened in the time of the Roman Empire when the calendar they were using got so out of sync ith the moon that something had to be done. In order to catch things up, Caesar let one year last for 445 days. Then in 153 B.C. the Roman senate decided that new years would henceforth begin on January first. This was something of a change from the previous practice of celebrating the new year sometime late in March (a custom dating back to the Babylonians, 4,000 years ago).

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Jan 01 - 07:46 PM

(I thought that was MY birthday, shared with other folks of a "certain age"...LOL!) I think Allan is right, here. The only other major shift I know of was between the Julain/Gregorian calenders, and it didn't do that, either.

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: NightWing
Date: 03 Jan 01 - 08:04 PM

Right, Sorcha. In 1752 (?) in England they simply dropped 10 or 11 days from the calendar during the month of October. (Anybody know the details for sure?) Different places around the world did the same eventually. I think that Russia actually waited until around 1900 sometime.

And the reason did indeed have to do with astronomy. The Vernal Equinox had moved 10 days or so from March 21 because the length of a year is not exactly 365 days. Today we fix it with Leap Days.

BB,
NightWing

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Jan 01 - 08:07 PM

Maybe it was February 13 and they unluckily got the numbers wrong way round...

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Megan L
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 10:52 AM

Thanks nightwing your explanation is probably been what I heard and got confusicated over the years. The gravestone does exist with no reasonable explanation, mind you we are talking Orkney here, home of the Hogboon , trows and Tam Hay's fairies, which we all very well know still exist:)

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 11:02 AM

Nightwing mentions the loss of 10 days out of the calendar as a result of the encyclicals of Pope Gregory (c1750). What he missed was the fact that this gave rise to riots in the streets as people demanded their 10 days back. The riot was finally quelled when the Bishop of Monmouth explained to the rioters that as a result of the change they were all going to live 10 days longer!

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 11:06 AM

Clicked too soon!

I was going on to say that it could be a slip of the chisel on the original stone.

There is a famous discarded tombstone on the common in Pontypridd South Wales,where the mason, due to misplacing a comma, gave the impression that a a certain lady's husband had died from excess drink. Needless to say the lady declined to pay for the stone... possibly the scots were a little meaner and let the error pass?

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: MMario
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 11:15 AM

Feb 31st (celebrated on March 3 except in leap year, when it is celebrated on March 2) has long been International Teddy Bear Day.

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 12:04 PM

Just to replace a bit the British bias by a broader perspective: The Gregorian Calendar was introduced in Italy, Spain, Portugal and catholic Poland in October, 1582, when October, 15th, followed October 4th (and was soon adopted by the other Roman Catholic countries). 170 years later, in 1752, the Gregorian calendar was finally adopted in Britain, not in October however, but in September. For coming late, the British had to pay dearly (grin): they now lost eleven days instead of ten (for the two calendars disagreed on whether 1700 was a leap year or not).

The British were not the only to come late (actually they were among the first of the not catholic countries to comply): The first mostly protestant country at all to introduce the Gregorian calendar was Prussia in 1610. The other protestant parts of Germany adopted the reform in 1700 (at the latest possible date to loose only 10 days) to end a long period of confusion due to two different calendars in Germany, Sweden came in 1753, Japan in 1873, Russia only after the October revolution (which was actually in November) in 1918 (most orthodox countries also followed in the twentieth century) and China in 1949 (another source: 1911).

To add a bit to what Wandering Minstrel has written about the reluctance of the people to accept the new calendar. Early environmentalists even reproached the pope with disturbing the migration of the birds and thus causing their deaths. If people emotionally oppose a change no argument is too stupid not to be used (no, I'm not going to link to the thread about the good old British money).

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 12:24 PM

BTW, George Washington was born on February 11, 1731, according to his birth certificate (for Britain and its colonies had not adopted the new calendar then). With some historical dates, there is a recalculation made accoring to today's calendar (in Washinton's case to give his birthday as Feruary 22), with other historical data there is no recalculation, a constant source of confusion.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Kim C
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 03:36 PM

I like teddy bears.

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 03:44 PM

Septober the 40tooth has always been a popular day in our family...

and "The Cowboy Fireman" has a line.."Oh we will always remember that 45th of May..."

...Feb. 31 is either a joke or a stone carver's mistake

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Bert
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 03:51 PM

When I was in Iran they changed the calendar three times. First the Shah changed the year by adding 500 or so years so that the calendar started with the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great. This didn't have the unifying effect that he had hoped for and just caused a lot of ill feeling and confusion. So he promptly changed back to the western calendar. When the Ayatolla got into power he changed the calendar to the Islamic one.

All this happened in the space of less than a year. Guinness book of records, where were you?

Subject: RE: BS: February 31st
From: Allan C.
Date: 04 Jan 01 - 04:00 PM

As a member of the United Bear Association (UBA), I assure you that the actual date for National Teddy Bear Day is November 14th (which just happens to fall two days after my birthday).