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1 month ago
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Social media users have been baffled to discover that the iPhone calendar is missing 10 days.
The strange omission was spotted by a sharp-eyed iPhone user who found that the calendar jumps from October 4 straight to October 15 in the year 1582.
In a viral post on X (formerly Twitter) viewed over 49 million times, the user asked: 'What the f*** happened in October 1582?'
Thousands of social media users flocked to the comments to share their confusion.
One commenter wrote: 'It means that all of us are 10 days older?'
'They been keepin us 10 days behind,' added another iPhone user.
And one commenter jokingly suggested: 'Someone got knocked into next week - literally.'
Surprisingly, this isn't caused by some sort of technical glitch or mistake from Apple -and there's a simple explanation.
Social media users have been baffled to find that the iPhone calendar is missing 10 days between October 4 and October 15, in the year 1582
On the iPhone calendar app, the days from October 5, 1582 and October 14, 1582 are missing entirely, leaving social media users to puzzle over why this might be the case (stock image)
Some confused commenters wondered if this meant they were 10 days older than they had thought
As confused users struggled to understand why October 5 to October 14 had been removed from the calendar app, some of the suggestions were less than helpful.
One commenter offered: 'Ya so basically time is fake hope this helps.'
Another chipped in: 'It was a leap year.'
One commenter wryly asked: 'You don't remember?'
Other commenters, meanwhile, were more concerned to find out why the original poster had scrolled all the way back to October 1582 in their iPhone calendar.
'Dude, do you even have a life to scroll down that much,' wrote one commenter.
Another asked: 'U scrolled ur calendar that far?'
While one commenter added: 'How long did it take you to go back 540 years? Were you that bored?'
Other commenters were more confused about why the original poster scrolled back to the year 1582 in their calendar
One commenter asked how long it took to scroll back the 540 years to find this strange omission
In reality, the reason the iPhone calendar is missing 10 days actually goes back even further - to the time of Julius Caesar.
In 45 BC, shortly before his assassination, Julius Caesar implemented what would become known as the 'Julian Calendar'.
Inspired by the Egyptian astronomers, this new calendar replaced the old lunar calendar with one based on the movements of the Earth around the sun, adding one leap day every four years.
However, although the Julian Calendar was remarkably reliable for its time, it wasn't quite perfect.
According to the Julian Calendar, the year was 365 days and 6 hours - about 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than it actually takes for the Earth to orbit the sun.
That might not seem like a lot, but this small difference meant that the date drifted by a day every 314 years.
By the eighth century AD, Christian scholars had already begun to notice that the calendar was becoming increasingly out of sync with the actual passage of the seasons.
But the biggest concern for the Church was that these errors were making it difficult to work out the exact date of Easter.
The origin of the missing days goes back to Julius Caesar (illustrated) who introduced the Julian Calendar in 45 BC. This calendar was about 11 minutes shorter than a solar year, meaning it got out of sync with the seasons over hundreds of years. Pictured: A s
In February 1582, Pope Gregory XIII (pictured) signed a papal bull introducing a new calendar known as the Gregorian Calendar to fix the errors. To introduce this, the church had to skip the 10 days between October 4 and October 15, removing them from the calendar
In 325 AD, at the Council of Nicaea, the church had decreed that Easter should fall on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox, which was March 21 at the time.
However, as the Julian calendar slipped away, the vernal equinox was getting further and further from March 21.
To fix this discrepancy, Pope Gregory XIII signed a papal bull in February 1582, implementing a new calendar which would become known as the Gregorian Calendar.
To bring the spring equinox back to March 21, the church simply cut out the 10 days between October 4 and October 15.
October was chosen for the switch over to avoid skipping any important dates in the Church calendar.
That meant people went from celebrating the feast of St Francis of Assisi on October 4, 1582, straight to October 15 the next morning.
Since protestant and Orthodox European countries were slower to adopt the change, for hundreds of years, travelling across borders in Europe meant jumping back and forth 10 calendar days.
It wouldn't be until 1752 that the British Empire finally adopted the Gregorian Calendar, finally making it the default timekeeping system for world history.
One commenter joked that users could 'blame the Pope' for the fact that their iPhone calendar was missing a few days
One social media user wrote that Pope Gregory XIII 'deleted 10 days like it was a bad tweet'
On social media, history buffs familiar with the story were delighted to see that the iPhone calendar still reflected this 500-year-old reform.
One commenter wrote: 'They deleted 10 days like it was a bad tweet. Gregorian calendar update dropped and time got patched.'
'Imagine going to sleep on the 4th and waking up on the 15th. Rent's due. You missed your own birthday. Absolute chaos,' one commenter added.
While another joked: 'I still remember this day. Slept on October 4 and then the next morning it's October 15 already. My best sleep ever to this day.'
HOW DID ENGLAND BECOME CHRISTIAN?
Britain was a fractious nation in the 7th Century AD, still looking for stability several centuries after the collapse of the Roman empire.
At this point, various kings ruled over different regions of land and many languages and religions dominated certain locales.
The exact date of the church is not known, but it is though to be around 633AD, or shortly after, when Ethelburga, a native of Kent, likely returned to her homeland following the death of her husband, Edwin.
Edwin was the son of Ethelfrith, a Northumbrian king who was known for his warring prowess and repeated skirmished with the Gododdin, a fierce celtic-speaking people from the north-east area of the then-called 'Britannia'.
King Redwalld of East Anglia dominated the centre of the country, and established the kingdom of Mercia while the Picts dominated modern-day Scotland.
Augustine (right, on bended knee), and a further 40 Benedictines, landed in Thanet and were met by Ethelbert and Bertha (left). The mission massed its litmus test in 602AD when the English king decided to join his wife's beliefs and opted to be baptised.He then also donated a certain site in Canterbury which would be home to the first, and most important, cathedral in the country. Augustine duly became Canterbury Cathedral's first archbishop
Another king ruled the south-east, with Ethelbert of Kent and his French Christian wife Bertha in command of the region.
These royals had been visited by a bishop from Rome in 597AD called Augustine after Pope Gregory sent him on a mission to take Christianity to the British isles.
The Pope's sudden interest in the British isles is believed to stem from a chance encounter with two 'Angli' slaves in an Italian slave market.
Their blonde hair and fair skin captivated the Pope and he immediately said of the inhabitants of England, known as Angels at the time: 'Non Angli sed angeli'.
Directly translated into English it means 'not Angels but angels of God'.
His instant infatuation was the kickstarter for the Roman clergy to begin their efforts to bring Evangelicalism to the desolate and divided nation.
Augustine, and a further 40 Benedictines, landed in Thanet and were met by Ethelbert and Bertha.
The mission massed its litmus test in 602AD when the English king decided to join his wife's beliefs and opted to be baptised.
He then also donated a certain site in Canterbury which would be home to the first, and most important, cathedral in the country.
Augustine duly became Canterbury Cathedral's first archbishop.
Meanwhile, the feared Ethelfrith from the north died and was succeeded by his son, Edwin, who soon mounted a charge on the rest of Britannia.
His vast army descended from the north and swept through Mercia and into Kent.
The mission ended in the conquest of the south-east and Edwin seized Ethelburga, daughter of Ethelbert and Bertha, as his trophy.
She became his second wife and her devote Christian beliefs went with her to the north.
A Roman monk was also claimed as part of Edwin's spoils and he performed a baptism on the young King Edwin.
This monk was then assigned the task of founding what is now one of the most iconic christian sites in the UK, York Minster.
After Edwin abandoned his Pagan beliefs, his reflective approach was not matched by all his contemporaries.
His high priest was so inflamed by the king's decision he hurled a spear into his own temple and ordered conflagration.
In 633AD King Cadwallen of Gwynedd and King Penda of Mercia invaded Northumbria and killed Edwin in battle.
He was defeated during the Battle of Hatfield Chase and left Ethelburga widowed.
The troops of King Cadwallon of Gwynedd raise their spears and rejoice at the death of King Edwin in 633AD. He was defeated during the Battle of Hatfield Chase and left Ethelburga widowed
