After Parliament's Calendar Act of 1750, Britain and its American colonies made September 2, 1752, the final day of the old Julian calendar; the next day became September 14. The switch aligned Britain with the Gregorian calendar that Catholic Europe had adopted 170 years earlier, correcting an accumulated 11-day drift caused by the Julian calendar's slightly inaccurate measure of the solar year. The change also moved the start of the legal new year from March 25 to January 1.
The 'lost' eleven days provoked genuine public unease, fueled by rumors and later folklore claiming rioters demanded 'give us back our eleven days,' angry that landlords still collected a full month's rent for a shortened month. Historians now doubt the riots were as widespread as legend suggests, but the anxiety was real: people worried about wages, rents, and the strange sensation of time itself being edited by government decree.
William Hogarth's 1755 painting 'An Election Entertainment' includes a discarded banner reading 'Give us our Eleven Days,' evidence the grievance had entered popular culture even if organized riots were exaggerated. The calendar reform aligned British dates with the rest of Catholic Europe for the first time since the Gregorian calendar's introduction in 1582, easing diplomatic and commercial correspondence across the continent.