The bizarre reason why 10 days went missing back in 1582

Time is a construct defined as the progression of events from the past into the present and the future and is one of the few things that remains regular and unchanged.

However there was a quirk in 1582 when something quite remarkable happened in that 10 days went missing in the month of October.

This was not an abnormality but a decision made at correcting centuries old inaccuracies in the Julian calendar, according to Daily Parliament Times.

The Julian calendar had been in use since it was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC but it was increasingly out of sync with the solar year - the Julian calendar was longer by around 11 minutes every year.

That might not sound like a lot but over more than 1,500 years, that adds up.

So much so that a new Gregorian calendar was proposed so that it matched up with the solar calendar.

But to do this, the Gregorian calendar would need to be matched up correctly and to make up for the extra time the Julian calendar accrued over more than 1,500 years, some days had to be lost.

That's why the calendar goes from Thursday, October 4 to Friday, October 15 in 1582.

It effectively erased 10 days from history but it's so the vernal equinox could be reset to March 21.

Catholic countries like Italy and Spain embraced the Gregorian calendar and changed fairly immediately but Protestant and Orthodox nations, such as Great Britain, did not alter it until 1752 when it then had to skip 11 days to align with the Gregorian calendar.

Russia stayed with the Julian calendar all the way to 1918.

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