Twins Born Minutes Apart In Different Decades

These twins will have a claim to fame at parties for life. They didn’t just enter the world minutes apart – they were born in different decades. 

According to doctors at the Frankfurter Bürgerhospital in the German city of Frankfurt, little Leon was born on December 31 last year at 23:24 while his twin brother Noel was born exactly one hour later on January 1, 2020, at 00:24.

Not only do these twin brothers get to celebrate their birthdays on separate days (no pangs of jealousy to worry about), they were technically born in different years – despite only an hour separating them.

The heartwarming snap of Leon and Noel was posted on the hospital’s Facebook page earlier this week, with the caption adding that the twins’ parents were overjoyed. According to the page, the picture was taken shortly after their birth, showing both babies sleeping peacefully with a Christmas hat.

Writing in the comments, the hospital added: ‘The most important thing is both babies are doing well. In 2020 can get underway. And with that in mind, we wish everybody a good start in the New Year.’

Explaining why they decided to call them Noel and Leon, the parents said Noel had the letters the right way leading into the year, and his brother had the same letters but arranged the other way.

We’re now into the (new) roaring ’20s. Culturally, it’s a turning of the tide, the start of something new and all that jazz.

However, is it technically a new decade? Now, before I go on, I believe it to be a new decade in my heart. However, if we’re chatting facts, a new decade doesn’t begin until next year.

Let me explain: the 2020s, as per the Gregorian calendar, is a completely fresh decade that began on January 1, 2020 and will come to an end on December 31, 2029. However, it’s not necessarily as simple as that.

Here’s another take on the decade conundrum, as per TimeandDate.com: 

At first glance, it all looks logical and straightforward. Decades – periods of ten years – begin when the year count ticks over from a year ending with nine to a year ending with zero.

For example, New Year’s Day 1980 marked the beginning of the eighties. After all, they are called ‘the 80s’ and not ‘the 81s’ right? Well, it does get a little more complicated when we look at centuries and millennia.

Contrary to popular belief, the 21st century and the third millennium did not begin on January 1, 2000, but one year later, on New Year’s Day 2001. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but it is a consequence of a defining feature of our modern anno domini time reckoning system: there was never a year zero, and year 1 BC was followed by year AD 1.

But who cares about facts anyway? We’re now in the 2020s, don’t get bogged down by technicalities.

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