Listen • 0:59
Mon Feb 22, 2021 WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY
George Washington was born on February 11th in 1731. He was also born over a year later, on February 22nd, 1732. If there were a calendar over Washington’s cradle it would have said the date was February 11th, 1731. But of course that was the old Julian calendar that was introduced to the world back in 46 BC, by the decree of Julius Caesar. In 1582, Pope Gregory replaced it with the Gregorian calendar, because after fifteen hundred years of reckoning time, the Julian calendar had slipped by ten days. But since the English colony of Virginia was Protestant, they kept the old style calendar until 1752, until everything was off by eleven days, so they decided to cut those days out of the calendar while also changing the new year’s beginning from the month of March back to January, thus shifting Washington’s birthday to February 22nd, which was fine with him. And of course now, Congress says it was last Monday, the third Monday in February. OK.