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By: Bananaking 🍌👑 | HistoryGoneBananas
The Great Calendar Heist of 1752
On this day in history, September 1752, Britain and its American colonies performed the ultimate magic trick: they made 11 days disappear. With the stroke of parliamentary pens, people went to bed on September 2nd and woke up on September 14th, with not a single moment in between.
Why the time skip? Britain finally decided it was time to stop being “fashionably late” to the calendar party. Most of Catholic Europe had already adopted Pope Gregory XIII’s Gregorian Calendar way back in 1582. The British Empire, loyal to Julius Caesar’s older but less accurate Julian Calendar, eventually realized they were falling behind. By 1752, the discrepancy added up to—you guessed it—11 whole days.
So Parliament shrugged and said, “Right then, we’ll just delete them.”
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What Did People Do With Their Missing 11 Days?
Here’s where it gets funny:
The Angry Rioters: Ordinary folks roared, “Give us back our eleven days!” They thought time itself had been stolen from their lives. (Spoiler: Parliament refused to hand them back.)
The Clever Tenants: Those owing rent or debts quietly celebrated…the due dates had conveniently vanished. The world’s first legal loophole courtesy of the calendar swap!
The Birthday Blues Crew: Poor souls born between September 3rd–13th technically lost their birthdays. Imagine arguing, “No really, I was born… well, not this year, apparently.”
It was, without question, one of the strangest history facts ever to officially happen.
History Lessons From The Great Calendar Switch
So what can historians, history geeks, and lovers of random trivia learn from Britain skipping 11 days in 1752?
Calendars are political tools: The Gregorian Calendar wasn’t just about accuracy—it was tied to religious authority and empire-building.
History is rarely smooth: Moments like this remind us that human progress is messy, confusing, and sometimes downright silly.
Time is not neutral: Decisions about “what day it is” deeply shape economies, religion, and culture—even to this day.
Learning this weird little event makes you see your own wall calendar in a totally different light, doesn’t it?
If This Happened Today…
Imagine if, in 2025, we woke up and were told that September 3rd through 13th didn’t exist. Netflix would probably try to charge you anyway, landlords would panic about rent, and TikTok would explode with memes about the “time jump glitch.”
So yes, the calendar chaos of 1752 was basically the 18th-century version of a software update—except with riots instead of bug fixes.
Want More Strange, Silly Moments From History?
If this tale of Britain skipping 11 days in 1752 made you say, “Wait, what?!”, then you’re exactly the kind of time-traveling banana we love.
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