In 1752, a young man known among his villagers for his cunning, scheming, and love of betting heard news from a traveling merchant while working in a neighboring village — news he was certain his own villagers knew nothing about. This news was a strange, sudden, and exceptional event. It would not repeat itself, and a person of his craftiness and cleverness could not let it pass without benefit.

A moment passed, then the idea sparked. He rushed out, running through the alleyways of the village, calling out to the villagers to hurry and gather in the village square, for he had brought them a bet and a challenge that was impossible to win. Impossible — yet he would not lose it. When they gathered, he addressed them saying: You love challenges, and most of you wish I would lose even a single bet. If you are interested and looking for the impossible bet, I have brought it to you myself. I bet you that I can dance in front of you for twelve days and nights continuously, without ever stopping for any reason — not for drink, not even for food. If you think it is madness, and that it is physically impossible for me to endure and succeed at that — then put your money on this bet, and if I win, it becomes mine. Everyone laughed mockingly, looked at him as if he were mad, and said: Why not? Perhaps he will lose this time. The young man said: Then our appointment is tomorrow, on September 2nd; I will begin dancing at night and finish on the 14th. You will bear witness to that. And indeed this young man won his impossible bet once again, to the astonishment of the villagers. Yes, the challenge of dancing continuously for twelve days was won by him, witnessed and unchallenged by all. The betting money became his. And if you are now searching for the solution to this puzzle, take a deep breath and listen carefully, because the answer lies in a global matter — old and real, hiding controversy, and perhaps a theory and a conspiracy — and what the young man did you will surely discover in this article.

The Phantom Time Theory

In recent times, and before that as well, posts have spread on social media about days deleted from some calendar years. The topic is not new, but every time it resurfaces, a conspiracy theory resurfaces with it — a theory that many of you may believe is closer to fiction than reality, yet its followers are many and are fully convinced of its validity. You will learn more about it in the course of this article. But before that, let us learn about one of the main reasons that led to the emergence of this theory. I believe many of you have come across in one way or another a post talking about the 11 missing days from September of the year 1752 — and perhaps some of you even searched on Google for this calendar and found the truth of the matter and the answer you were looking for. The reality is: this matter is real and did actually happen, and even more than this, these days were not the only missing ones — nor was it the first time. How? Listen carefully.

The Details of the Story

We go back to February of the year 1582. In that year, a new calendar was adopted to replace the Julian calendar by the Catholic Church. The Julian calendar had been in use since 46 BC and acquired its name from the person who created and approved it: Julius Caesar. This calendar remained in use for many long centuries, but it witnessed many flaws and errors. The most prominent of these errors was that as a result of a computational error of 11 minutes, the calendar year became longer than the solar or tropical year — as it is called — by 11 minutes, which caused this calendar to drift by one day every 128 years. This drift led to many errors in calculating the date of Easter. For according to what was agreed upon at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, Easter must fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. But the computational error and its consequences caused problems. Voices grew louder demanding a solution to this dilemma, and consultations and proposals began from the year 1562 until the year 1582, and specifically in February of that year. In that year, Pope Gregory XIII undertook what he called a papal revolution, and the Gregorian calendar was born — a calendar that drew on the proposals of Italian scholar Luigi Lilio and some modifications from mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius. It was necessary to delete ten days from the Julian calendar to solve the problem. But if the goal from the outset was to fix the days according to the vernal equinox for the sake of Easter celebrations, then logically the 10 days should be deleted from March to restore the vernal equinox from March 11th to March 21st. However, the Church had another opinion: it firmly refused to delete days from March so as not to skip any major Christian celebrations, and the collective view was that these days should be deleted from October. Ten days were indeed deleted from it, so the calendar of October in 1582 became as follows: October 1, October 2, October 3, October 4, then October 15 to the end of the month. And so the problem was solved, and the Gregorian calendar became the official calendar from that time — and to this day. What historical sources have documented indicates that European countries did not all adopt the Gregorian calendar in the same year. The first countries to adopt it were France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. As for Britain, for political considerations and to show its superiority and greatness, it refused to adopt the Gregorian calendar, and this continued until 1750. In that year, the new calendar was presented to the British Empire, and after much debate and discussion, the adoption of the Gregorian calendar was approved. But the problem lay in the difference between the countries that had adopted it early and Britain, and to unify the calendar and eliminate the differences, it was decided to correct the gap by deleting 11 days from September. So the calendar stopped in September of the year 1752 at the 2nd and resumed on the 14th. Japan then joined in 1872 and deleted 12 days from December, followed by Turkey as the last country to adopt the Gregorian calendar, which began using it on January 1st of 1927.

So there are indeed deleted days throughout history. But before we reach the shock, the controversy, and the excitement that you have not yet learned about, there are amusing stories related to this event. For example, the British at first believed that this change and the deletion of days had taken 11 days from their lives, so they launched a widespread campaign at the time — documented by history books and artists' drawings — under the title: "Give us back our 11 days." And in a book by author W.M. Jamieson titled "Murders, Myths, and Monuments of North Staffordshire," there is an amusing story about a man named William Wold of Inden. And here — listen carefully — you will now hear the true story behind what I introduced at the beginning. This man placed a bet with the villagers that he could dance for 12 days and nights continuously. Indeed, the man began dancing around the village on September 2nd of the year 1752, and the following morning — dated September 14th — the man stopped dancing, declaring his win of the bet, and of course the money attached to it, to the astonishment of the villagers. For he had indeed, according to the new calendar, danced for 12 days and nights continuously. This man — was he not clever? Real events documented in historical records were the cause.