Every fourth year, an extra day is added to February and the year is called the leap year. But did you know that there have been two instances where the date of February 30 has occurred in our world’s history?
The month of February consists of 28 days, during the common year, and every fourth year, it becomes a month of 29 days. As per reports, the Scandinavian country of Sweden added the date of February 30 in the year 1712 due to an error in the calendar, while the Soviet Union added February 30 during the years 1930 and 1931 to follow the revolutionary calendar.
In the year 1700, Sweden decided to convert from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, so that year there was no leap year in the country. But in the years 1704 and 1708, an error made these years become leap years, and because of that, the years were out of synchronisation, which made the country revert to the Julian calendar. So, the date of February 30 was later observed in the year 1712, when they added 2 leap days to the calendar. Then in 1753, Sweden finally converted to the Gregorian calendar, the year when February 17 was succeeded by March 1. People were not pleased with this change, as they felt they lost 11 days of their lives.
For the Soviet Union, February 30 was included in the years 1930 and 1931, because they brought a revolutionary calendar in 1929. According to this calendar, a week had 5 days, while every working month consisted of 30 days, and the 5 to 6 days which remained, were called the “monthless” holidays. This was done to improve the efficiency of the industries so that a non-working day interruption is not caused. In 1940, the calendar was dropped, because they found it difficult to entirely get rid of a Sunday rest.
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