We all know the old mnemonic device, right? Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, but what if September suddenly had only nineteen days? That’s exactly what Boston experienced in 1752, when the town went to bed on September 2nd and woke up on the 14th. It sounds like something that would have a supernatural explanation, like a mass alien abduction, or maybe something contaminated the water supply to make the entire town go into a brief coma, but the explanation is more pedestrian. Almost two centuries after most of Europe had switched to a new calendar system, the British Empire was following suit, including its overseas colonies like Massachusetts. How did Bostonians adapt to the change? Were they as confused as I would be if my calendar suddenly changed? Did Bostonians riot, demanding their 11 days back? How did the generation that lived through the change remember key dates like their birthdays after the switch? Listen now!

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/309/

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Thirty Days Hath September

• Ames, Nathaniel. An Astronomical Diary, or, an Almanack for the Year of Our Lord CHRIST 1752, [1751] (with notes and corrections by John Winthrop)


• Fowle, Daniel. An Almanack of Almanacks, Collected from Poor Job, and others. For the Year of our Lord 1752. Boston: Printed and Sold by Fowle in Queen-Street, [1751].


• “Calendar (New Style) Act 1750,”
  
  Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain; 1750 c. 23 (Regnal. 24_Geo_2) (original via
  
  The Statutes at Large: From the Magna Charta, to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, Anno 1761)


• “An Act for Regulating the Commencement of the Year and for Correcting the Calendar Now In Use,” The Charters and General Laws of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1751


• Diary of John Adams, volume 2, Octr. 19. 1772


• Diary of Ebenezer Parkman, 1752


• Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 6 January 1773


• Freiberg, Malcolm. “Going Gregorian, 1582-1752: A Summary View.” The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 86, no. 1, 2000


• Smith, Mark M. “Culture, Commerce, and Calendar Reform in Colonial America.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 4, 1998


• Howard, Sethanne. “Calendars: What Day Is It Anyway?” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 96, no. 4, 2010


• Nichols, Charles L. “Notes on the Almanacs of Massachusetts.” Proceedings of the American Aritiquarian Society, April 1912


• “When Did the British New Year Begin Before 1752?” by JL Bell


• “Happy New Year” by Gary Smith


• More on Boston’s ancient anticatholic prejudices