The 10 days that never happened
Why October 1582 skipped 10 days, and what the “real” date is today.
If you scroll back on your iPhone calendar to October 1582, you’ll notice something strange.
After October 4, it jumps straight to October 15. No, your phone isn’t glitching, and no, it’s not an Illuminati time-wipe.
Those 10 days just… never existed.
Wait… what happened?
Back in the 16th century, the Catholic Church decided the Julian calendar was throwing off the timing of Easter.
The spring equinox was showing up on 11 March instead of 21 March. Pope Gregory XIII had had enough, so he introduced the Gregorian calendar.
The fix was to skip 10 days to get time back in sync with the Sun. People literally went to bed on October 4 and woke up on October 15, 1582.
Imagine the poor guy who had rent due on the 5th. Instant win.
Now, it gets even more confusing…
Not everyone made the jump at the same time, though. Some countries clung to the old Julian calendar for centuries.
Alaska only switched in 1867, and Russia waited until after the 1917 Revolution, meaning they were living in a different “time” than the rest of the world.
Yoh! International Zoom calls back then would’ve been a nightmare.
Even crazier, if your birthday happened to be between October 5 and October 14, 1582… well, it never happened.
You’d be the 16th-century version of a leap year baby - only worse, because you’d be a ghost in the calendar.
Fast-forward to today, and because the Julian calendar was just slightly “too long,” the gap between the old and new systems has grown.
By 2025, it’s not just a 10-day skip anymore; it’s a 13-day difference.
So if you have a birthday today. I’ve got some bad news for you - you technically missed it.
Better luck next year, buddy.
We shared this with KZN and they were absolutely shooketh...
Take a listen to how it went:
So, what’s the actual date today? (13 August 2025)
If the switch had never happened, today’s “real” date would actually be 31 July 2025.
So, in a way, we’ve been living in the future for over 400 years.
Hmmm…Does this mean we’re technically two weeks younger than our birthdays say? Probably.
Are our bills all technically overdue? Yep - way overdue (but don’t tell your bank).
Oh, and yes, time (it seems) is a man-made scam.
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