In 1751 you would be hearing: 'Happy New Year, may 1752 be a good one' because March 25th was the official New Years Day until Pope Gregory meddled with the Calendar and New Years Day got shunted back to January 1st.
It wasn’t just the year start that needed adjusting, as the new calendar was now out by several days which meant that in England, 11 days were lost as Wednesday September 2 1752 was followed by Thursday September 14 1752 in order to right things. The jump must have been very disconcerting if your birthday fell between these dates but apart from missing Birthday cake, it gave us the weird Tax Year we have which starts on April 6th.
Where the new tax year was March 25 (the old New Year) it was moved to April 5, and later to April 6, so March 25 may be a day that for most goes by with little notice now but it was once a major holiday that marked the beginning of the new year.
I always thought that to cram two big days of the year (Christmas and New Years) into the space of 7 days was an awful bit of planning although it does give us 3 Bank Holidays in a short space of time, it also gives us Twixmas which is that weird period between Boxing Day and New Years Day when you lose track of what day it is and nobody wants to do anything because they are too hungover or unable to move due to all the Christmas pudding and roast dinners.
I will add moving the New Year back to March 25th onto my 'To Do' list of when i become Prime Minister.
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