11 Days in September

Give us back our eleven days! was a well know English slogan in the late 1800's. It grew out of an act of the British Parliament in 1752 that changed the calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian. (Pope Gregory ruled in 1582 that the new Julian calendar, the one with the leap year, would be used; countries were slow to adopt.)

Just like today's media, the combination half truths, blipverts, under-educated working class, and a need to stir controversy resulted in the common man completely misunderstanding what the new law has actually doing. They mistakenly though that 11 days of their life and 11 days of wages were being taken away from them. Thus the slogan;

Give us our eleven days!

In this print you can almost make out [click image to enlarge] the slogan on the flag outside the window. (The Tories are carrying an antisemitic caricature of a Jew, a reference to recent legislation passed by the Whig government which allowed greater freedom to Jews. They are also carrying a banner containing the words "Give us our Eleven days", a protest against the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.)

As a software test professional, whenever you are testing an application that deals with dates consider the impact of September 1582 on the algorithm, there are 11 days missing after Sept. 2nd. (: Sharon's birthday is safe :)