12 How the Church Has Changed the World have been born on February 30, because those ten dates for that year were cut out. But the problem would have arisen again, had not Clavius hit upon the notion of omitting leap-year days for three out of four century years. So we had a February 29 in 2000, divisible by 400, but there was none in 1900, and there will not be another one in a century year until 2400. That will keep our calendars in trim for the next thirty thousand years, if the Lord does not wind things up here sooner, as we hope he will. Had Christendom not been divided, little George Washington would have been born on February 22 and not February 11 (you see, an eleventh extra day had wriggled in already). But for a long time the Protestant nations resisted adopting a “Catholic” calendar. That finally changed for England and her colonies in 1752—another year of vanishing dates—and now the Gregorian calendar is pretty much universal. The true new year? “But wait a moment,” you say. “That explains the dates in February, but it doesn’t explain the year.” Quite correct. You see, the convention of setting the beginning of the New Year as January 1 derives from Julius Caesar himself, but it wasn’t the only candidate. Christians in England, for example,
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