History of Sorts

I know what you all are thinking “He is Dutch, he must have been smoking some funny stuff” Rest assured nothing could be further from the truth.

30 February was actually a real date, well at least in Sweden.

February 30 was a real date in Sweden in 1712.

Instead of changing from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar by omitting a block of consecutive days, as had been done in other countries, the Swedish Empire planned to change gradually by omitting all leap days from 1700 to 1740, inclusive. Although the leap day was omitted in February 1700, the Great Northern War began later that year, diverting the attention of the Swedes from their calendar so that they did not omit leap days on the next two occasions and 1704 and 1708 kept leap years.

To avoid confusion and further mistakes, the Julian calendar was restored in 1712…