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Comment by maxk42 | Hacker News Reader

I can't believe I'd never heard of this before, but apparently it's true. Some people born before 1753 were considered to have been born in two years simultaneously.

https://genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/132/what-is-a-...

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Crazier still....

> Imagine – a person could have been married on April 26, 1710 and died on Feb 2, 1710.

(Because the new year began on March 25 prior to 1752)

That's crazy for us. But for them the year was from March to February (ok from March 25th to March 24th :D).

Still, dying 2 months before getting married was crazy for them, too.

"What year was George Washington born" makes for a great trivia question; there is no answer.

i think that was 1732

He was born in 1731. In the calendar reforms of 1752, February 1731 retroactively became February 1732. So, when he was 15 years old, he had been born in 1731, but by the time he was 30, he had been born in 1732.

Of course there is, one only needs to specify which calendar one is using when giving the answer. You could answer in the Chinese calendar if you wanted.

I'm trying to describe this without antagonism, forgive me if I fall. But your question to me sounds just like saying, "at what temperature does water freeze?" and claiming there is no answer because Fahrenheit and Celsius both exist.

I feel like the article makes a similar mistake in claiming that certain dates did not exist. They are simply different calendars and the dates existed even if no one called them that date when they happened. It's like saying the 4th of July, 1776 BCE didn't exist - of course it did but nobody called it that at the time.

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