Talk:List of non-standard dates

31 days in February

!!Were there any months with __31 days__ in February?

Yes, until Julius and Augustus Caesar took them away to make July and August 31 days. RickK 04:23, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This is probably a myth, albeit a very old one. There is no historical evidence for the claim that Augustus changed the days in February. Claus T 13:26, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why does February have less days than all other months?

There is theory/comments going around that February has less days because in the Book of Job 3:1-10, Job cursed the day he was born and asked the Lord to blot out that day, let it not be known. Please provide feedback and any proof/evidence you may find in history. - (unsigned)

This is just something someone made up. It's wrong. Job was speaking figuratively about his personal misery, rather than concretely about calendar reform. The Book of Job was written about 470 B.C. The author would not have been using a Roman calendar. In any case, February was introduced into the Roman calendar by Pompilius (c. 715-673 BC), and moved to its position between January and March in 450 B.C. The length of February was set at 28 days by Julius Caesar in 45 BC - without reference to Job. It is also sometimes said that Augustus shortened February to lengthen the month named after him, August. It's also not true. -- Nunh-huh

The Job thing is a joke. You're right, Nunh-huh, the author of Job would have used the Jewish calendar not the Roman. Jess Cully 00:00, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

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was there February 30 in France after The French Revolution?

Kind of yes. All month in the French Republican Calendar had 30 days, however there was no February anymore, but the two months Pluviôse and Ventôse, the first one till February 19-21, and the second covering the last few days of February. So more a no... andy 19:24, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sweden

Why didn't the Swedes continue carrying out their plan to drop the leap days in February 1704 and 1708? --Metropolitan90 16:31, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Good question! My guess is that they just forgot. Others think that the Swedes soon realised in 1700 that they were out of step with everyone else in the world, and that they'd be better off going back to the Julian or adopting the Gregorian ASAP (though that doesn't explain why it took them till 1712 to get round to it). Jess Cully 00:02, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Did anything interesting happen on February 30th? 82.163.24.100 (talk) 19:55, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Climate Models

Climate Models often simplify things by having 12 months of 30 days.

[1]

Not sure whether this is worth a mention in this article though. crandles 21:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

This is probably worth a mention. Feel free to add information regarding it if you'd like, since you're the climate expert. --Randy 05:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Notice a link on the page goes to a non-existant page, http://www.metoffice.com/research/hadleycentre/models/GDT/ch23.html Not looked to see if the proper connection would be found. Brian 81.174.167.128 20:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Recovered from Wayback Machine. — Joe Kress 07:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Future February 30

I remember reading something around 1999-2000 that sometime between 3000-3999 AD there will be a February 30, in order to keep the sun and calenar together. If this is so, we need to add it to this page.--Bedford 04:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. I think there will be a need to have an extra day but this is likely to take the form of a 29th Feb on a year when there wouldn't otherwise be one. crandles 21:05, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

We just had such a year in 2000 - every 100th year is not a leap year, but every 400th is. On the other habd the year is getting (I think) longer so eventually months may need to bumped up in days. Rich Farmbrough 22:46 14 March 2006 (UTC).

No I was wrong Notice that the average of these four is 365.2422 SI days (the mean tropical year). This figure is currently getting smaller, which means years get shorter, when measured in seconds. Now, actual days get slowly and steadily longer, as measured in seconds. So the number of actual days in a year is decreasing too. (from Tropical year. Rich Farmbrough 22:52 14 March 2006 (UTC).

Personally, I don't think they'll worry about it. Assuming they even still use the Gregorian Calendar, why should they worry about a single day? Personally, I think a future calendar will be simpler not more complex, as they won't worry about keeping the solstices and equinoxes on the same date. Perhaps going back to the Julian calendar, or even completely eliminating leap years all together Nik42 06:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

that would never happen because even slight inaccuracies in time/calendar keeping can cause huge problems over time. over the years, those extra days would build up, and we'd have summer begining on march 12 or something. it has happened in the past, and calendars had to be completely restuctured due to this.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.118.188.178 (talk • contribs)

So what? I don't see how that's a significant problem. By that logic, people in the southern hemisphere should've moved their calendar 6 months so that winter starts in December instead of July. There's nothing inherent in March that says it HAS to be a spring month. By the time the seasons moved, people would've become used to the new seasonal/month associations. Nik42 01:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

That's one of the silliest suggestions I've heard. There is nothing inherently "wintery" about December or "summery" about July or "spring-like" about March. To a Southern Hemisphere person December is associated with summer just as July is in the Northern Hemisphere. On the other hand, it is generally regarded as important that the calendar should coincide with the seasons. It really doesn't matter whether December is winter or summer as long as it coincides with the same season each year. 82.32.72.129 (talk) 20:31, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Something like that will inevitably happen, but not as fast as some of you predict. It will take tens of thousands of years for a big change to happen and we will be making constant adjustments to the calendar to prevent that change. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.44.238 (talk) 23:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we will, but I doubt it. Why should we? It takes thousands of years for the Gregorian to get even one day away from the solar calendar. Why should it be a problem if sometime in the distant future, Spring starts, on average, on March 20 instead of March 21? Why should people get worked up over that? At any rate, trying to predict what people in teh distant future will do with teh calendar is ridiculous. Nik42 05:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Linked title

Having February 30 in the article as linked-title makes it format oddly - a line break with excessive spacing above it. The invisible note says it's designed to make it format properly (30 February or February 30, depending on your preference), but I think that's a poor trade-off. I've changed it to "30th of February" - and we'll see what people think. - DavidWBrooks 00:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

It took me a while to follow what you were saying, but I agree, I though it might have been the Swedish calendar picture that was causing it, but I was wrong. I think that Linked title may have been designed to work at the start of a line, or the template had been changed at some time and nobody remembered that it was used in February 30, which is one of the few places it still is used, a Template Day has/will soon have replaced all the others Linked title templates on the 365 normal day pages. --Drappel 06:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Linked-title used to work properly within this article, but obviously it was recently changed, because the same problem occurred on January 1. I have reported both at Template talk:Linked-title. I disagree with the use of the Template:Day template in January 1 because similar info is repeated in the main paragraph. — Joe Kress 19:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

While this is not the place to discuss January 1, since you have mentioned it I will, if you have a problem with the main paragraph of January 1 why not change the main paragraph of January 1. Perhaps that is a stupid question but since I have no understanding of templates it seems the simple answer --Drappel 02:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

There could be a February 30 in 4000 because The years are getting shorther by the second. Why are the leap days in years that end in '00 Always Tuesdays? February 30, 4000 would be a Wednesday. User:CDHgrün 03:25:, 29 October 2007 {UTC} —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.102.5.92 (talk) 03:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Disregarding Easter, the Gregorian Calendar repeats every 400 years. That is because the Leap Year Rules repeat every 400 years, and, with those Rules combined with the length of a normal year, 400 years contain a multiple of 7 days. Leap days only occur in years ending '00 once per 400 years, so xx00-02-29 is always the same day of the week. Likewise the first day of a Millennium is always on one of two days of the week, one for even millennia and one for odd ones. 82.163.24.100 (talk) 19:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Calendar reform

Isaac Newton's reform would have given a February 30th, rather infrequently. The Article could mention that, and cite http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~belenka/Newton-calendar.pdf. 82.163.24.100 (talk) 19:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

There's something called the World Calendar, which has identical quarters (91 days, 13 weeks in each). February has 30 days each year, but it has one peculiarity which ensures it will never catch on - December 31 is outside the week. So Saturday, December 30 (same every year) is followed by a public holiday followed by Sunday, January 1. In leap years you also get June 31, between Saturday, June 30 and Sunday, July 1. New calendar (talk) 22:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, after Anonymous mentioned Isaac Newton's unpublished proposal, it occurred to me that the World Calendar's February 30 could also be in the article. However, unlike the 30/360 calendars mentioned below, neither has ever been used. Calendar proposals do not interest me. — Joe Kress (talk) 00:01, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

30/360 models

30/360 day model years imply a Feb 30. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.67.49.115 (talk) 04:38, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Only the Roman, Julian and Gregorian calendars have a month named February, which does not have 30 days in any of them, except for the single occurence cited in the article. No calendar that has twelve 30-day months (plus five or six epagomenal days) such as the Egyptian, Coptic and Ethiopian calendars, has any month named February. — Joe Kress (talk) 08:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Image

How does a photo of a misprinted calendar that erroneously includes February 30 of any benefit to this article?PacificBoy 23:36, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it does not benefit the article and support its removal. — Joe Kress (talk) 00:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Calendar error.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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March 0

March 0 is a hopeless stub, but somehow survived an AFD. How about adding it here, united the stubs might survive also the next AFD. –Be..anyone (talk) 09:42, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Agreed = merge it into this article. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:22, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Agree. Let's merge it. Kaldari (talk) 21:50, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't know that it would make sense to do that. March 0 is a placeholder for a particular day in any given year, but only describes February 30 on the rare occasion that February 30 exists. That is, it seems that the February 30 article is too specific for March 0 to be merged in cleanly.24.41.64.182 (talk) 02:05, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

 Merged –Be..anyone (talk) 22:37, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Revisit

Late to the discussion, but it does seem that March 0 is a different topic than February 30. Yeah, the article is unlikely to grow much larger than its stub form, but it's not really suitable as a section of the topic "February 30". Is being a stub, even a "hopeless" stub, a reason for deletion? -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:21, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

It wasn't deleted - it became a section of this article. March 0 redirects there, so people can still find it. That seems appropriate to me. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:33, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say it was deleted. It was merged into this article as if it were a subtopic of this topic. That seems inappropriate to me, since the "March 0" imaginary date meaning the last day of February is a different topic than, not a subtopic of, the "February 30" vanishingly rare actual date and also sarcastic date meaning "never". People could still find it if it were split back to March 0. Being stubs doesn't mean needing to be merged. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:36, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

February 31

There's no February 31 article in wikipedia (it redirects to here) - but there is this (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/February_31) in wikimedia commons, which looks like an old wikipedia article and has photos attached. I've never really dealt in wikimeida commons, so I'm not quite sure how/whether to incorporate any of it here. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:40, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

irrelevant items in see also

I removed Ides of March and Doomsday Algorithm from the "see also", as they don't seem related to this topic at all. Somebody has returned them, so I thought I'd mention it here to see if anybody has any strong opinions one way or the other. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:20, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

They were both brought over from the (IMO unneeded) merge of March 0. The Doomsday algorithm includes March 0 as a memorable date. The Ides of March is another "special" March date. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:47, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh. (Not 0) ... well, it's no big deal - but certainly Ides of March is irrelevant; the calendar is full of "special" dates. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:02, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

I can't think of any other special March dates based on their calendar position. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:28, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I had forgotten about this discussion and I removed Ides of March again, only to have it returned as per above. It still strikes me as insufficiently connected (obviously). After all, we don't "see also" to St. Patrick's Day or the Vernal Equinox, which also appear in March. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:07, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Those holidays aren't based on their positions within the month either. It continues to be my opinion that the merge of March 0 should be undone, since it is used differently than February 30. It would have the added benefit of carrying those two "See alsos" over to March 0 since they are irrelevant to February 30. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:51, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Maybe we should create an article for all "fake" dates and turn Feb. 31 and March 0 (are there others?) into sections within the article. I'm not sure what to call it, though. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

List of non-standard dates, perhaps. But some non-standard dates could be notable enough for articles. December 32, January 0, May 35. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:02, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me as an article title. My opinion is that none of these dates need to be individual articles; they could all link to the proper section of the main article, which could help provide context to the casual reader. The December 32 article seems a real stretch as a disambiguation page. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:19, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

I'll tackle this. I think this article should be moved to the new name (to preserve its history there). Yes? -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:58, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes. I've forgotten how to do a proper move. Is the idea to create the new page, merge material from all the other pages onto it, then forward all of them to the new page? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 02:47, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

To move this to the new title (since it's the most extensive to start with) and merge the others into it, with redirects all around. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:17, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Nicely done! That must have taken a bit of time. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:20, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Time flies when you're having fun. :-) -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:19, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

February 31, again

I'm darned if I can find any reference that actually supports anybody ever using February 31 as a placeholder, etc. The only references online seem to be scrapes of wiktionary with no supporting references.

The mention of Feburary 31 currently in the article was added earlier this year by User:JHunterJ, who appeared to add it, with a "citation needed", only because February 31 pointed this article so he thought we needed some reference to February 31.

With all that in mind, I'd like to remove that sentence and have no reference at all to February 31 in the article, just as we have no reference to February 32. I guess I'd leave the article February 31 pointing here because it has to do something, or else we could just kill it.

Any thoughts? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 23:37, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Deleting its mention here without deleting the redirect is a bad idea. Users landing here from that redirect will be looking for that mention. I have no objection to the deletion of both the mention and the redirect. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:23, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

But see:

• http://www.swampyacresfarm.com/wordpress/tag/february-31-on-gravestone/
• https://books.google.com/books?id=gE4P1bhDCB4C&pg=PA212&dq=%2B%22february+31%22++-wikipedia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwics4Sy0PvcAhXixYMKHeIeBckQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=%2B%22february%2031%22%20%20-wikipedia&f=falsez
• https://books.google.com/books?id=lnVMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA2195&dq=%2B%22february+31%22++-wikipedia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwics4Sy0PvcAhXixYMKHeIeBckQ6AEIPjAE#v=onepage&q=%2B%22february%2031%22%20%20-wikipedia&f=false
• https://books.google.com/books?id=qjtSAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA23&dq=%2B%22february+31%22++-wikipedia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivgsH90PvcAhWpwVkKHdBmAxI4HhDoAQg_MAQ#v=onepage&q=%2B%22february%2031%22%20%20-wikipedia&f=false

-- JHunterJ (talk) 12:32, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Interesting but boy, those references are pretty peripheral - a weird tombstone, what is almost certainly a typo in a listing of legislation, and its potential usage (along with Feb. 32 and 33) for calculating weather data. I guess we could summarize them in this story somewhere, but not in the lede. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:48, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

which are items, which are See Also?

There are some choices to be made for how this excellent page will handle non-standard dates that are created only in fiction.

Right now, for example, June 31, which is from a film and nothing else, is a section while May 33rd, also from a film only, is just a "see also" item. December 32, which isn't even a title but is used in a (admittedly wonderful) book, is also a section.

JHunterJ - did you do that on purpose, because of the "33rd" name? Or are these decisions you're still working on as you finalize this page? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:59, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

The thingies I put in the "See also" section I did so because, despite the use in the name, I couldn't find any indication that the dates "exist" within the work. The non-standard date December 32 exists in the book, while the non-standard date "May 33" may or may not exist in the telefilm with that name. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:00, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Got it. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:24, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Early Julian calendar

An anonymous user from IP 2600:6c44:237f:accb:44d1:46d3:94b9:5f7f added the following comment in a reference tag on 24 November 2020:

The thirteenth-century scholar [[Johannes de Sacrobosco]] [[WP:Words to watch|claimed]] <ref> ahem, whoever first wrote this section should refer to [[MOS:CLAIM]] </ref> that

Obviously that is not a proper use of reference tags, but the (implicit) request for improvement stands. Cnilep (talk) 05:26, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Probable typo

"Other non-standard dates are sometimes used in software engineering. For example, Java (specifically the java.util.Calendar class) allows dates such as February 0 (= January 31) and April 31 (= March 1)." Shouldn't the be "April 31 (=May 1)"? March 1 is the beginning of the month before April, May 1 is the beginning of the month after. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 01:55, 30 October 2024 (UTC)