The young student who discovered the mistake was never thanked for it.
After much intense study he discovered that the present day calendar that we all rely on so naturally, without giving it a moment’s thought, is three days out. At the time that this error occurred, there had been so much discussion in academic circles about the year now being calculated to be 365 days, but followed excruciatingly by so many decimal points, brought about the slipup. So much attention being placed on the preciseness of the length of the year had let this faux pas go by unnoticed.
The printing company that flooded the market with its printing of the calendar, mainly due to its clever, eye-catching design, was responsible for the cockup. Of course, this calendar having been distributed not long after the Julian calendar was dumped and replaced by the Gregorian calendar, which conveniently rounded off the number of days to 365 and made up any shortfall by creating leap years, was a major factor in the bungle. So, because this howler occurred towards the end of the late eighteen hundreds, it went completely under the radar until the student in question did some serious digging.
At first the researching student could not believe that such a whacking great blunder could possibly have gone unnoticed. For this reason he went on for a further two months of intensive evidence gathering before deciding that his results were valid enough to make his findings known. Not knowing what authority should be made aware of such a stupendous booboo, he approached his university mentor.
The professor had a lot of time for the young man and had found his commitment to study had always been excellent. Despite this, the very idea that such a gaffe could have taken place, all because of a typo in a printed calendar, popular or not, was quite beyond belief. For this reason the professor took on the task of checking and verifying his student’s research papers.
The professor, after spending more than a week working through his student’s papers, came to the devastating conclusion that his research was correct and indeed the present day calendar was out by three days. It was a fiasco. He began to see the ramifications of it. There were global economics to consider, trade route schedules, share dividends, time locks on vaults, church services, passports, birthdays, TV programming, repeat episodes, and of course, calendars!
It was more than a fiasco, it was an imbroglio beyond anyone’s imagination.
Considering the false notion that it was a Thursday, and knowing full well that the day was in fact Sunday, he decided to spend the rest of the day in church.
He was last seen on the Friday, or more accurately the Monday, leaping from the university belfry, with witnesses saying they heard him screaming something about typos.
On the following day, the Saturday, which was in fact the Tuesday, the student followed his example.
This being the case, and being most fortunate for the rest of us, the truth of the matter has never come to light.