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Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on the day known
in the English-speaking world as January 6. His birth is recorded
in the City Registry of Boston, Boston Birth records, at vol.
5, page 113, and also in the baptismal records of the Clerk of
the Old South Church in Boston. In 1752, however, Great Britain,
after literally centuries of obstinate refusal, finally agreed
to move from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian
calendar resolved virtually all the shortcomings of the older
Julian and is still the calendar system we use today.
The New Style calendar, as it came to be called,
required the adding of eleven days in order to bring the heretofore
Julian users into conformance with the Gregorian. Britain's colonies
followed its lead. So Benjamin Franklin's birthday, under the
New Style calendar, is January 17. But it seems Franklin was unable
to relinquish January 6. He used that date, for example, in his
own epitaph. Historians, though, commonly make the eleven day
adjustment and use January 17. The authoritative Dictionary of
American Biography, for example, uses January 17, 1706. The birthdays
of most of the founders of the United States of America -- perhaps
most publicly, George Washington's -- are caught in the same time
warp. The proper way to render the date, both ways, is: January
6, 1706 (O.S.) and January 17, 1706 (N.S.)
Here's Ben's epitaph: "The Body of B. Franklin, Printer; Like
the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of
its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for Worms. But the
Work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ'd, appear
once more, In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and amended
By the Author. He was born Jan. 6. 1706. Died _____ 17__
Thanks to Mark Lloyd in University Archives for this information.
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