The Russian Olympic Team once showed up 12 days later to the Olympics. The reason why is pretty crazy.

The Russian Olympic Team once showed up 12 days later to the Olympics. The reason why is pretty crazy.

The 1908 Olympics Games in London became known as the Olympics where communication was incredibly poor.

Why? Because the Imperial Russian Olympic Team arrived in London 12 days too late for the games.

How can this be possible? Surely both nations had agreed on a start date?

As it turns out, England was using the Gregorian calendar, the one that we use today, for over a century and a half.

Unfortunately, Russia was still using the Julian calendar - a pretty dated (pun intended) way to keep track of the days!

After the Olympics, Pope Gregory XIII tried to initiate a planet wide effort for countries to adopt the Gregorian calendar.

Essentially, if you were switching suddenly to the Gregorian calendar - you were 'canceling' ten days a year!

(Source)

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