This is a historic day. No, not because it’s the Super Bowl, but because it’s the first global palindrome day in more than 900 years.
It’s a trivial, fascinating novelty. Do you remember November 11, 2011? Not only is it when The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim dropped on consoles, but it was also the first date of its kind in 100 years that could be written as 11/11/11.
This is even more seismic, even more legendary. Today, February 2, 2020, is the first worldwide palindrome in 909 years.
Firstly, what’s a palindrome? It’s a word (or in this case, a sequence of numbers) that are the same forwards and backwards. For example, racecar spells racecar backwards, kayak spells kayak, and tenet spells tenet – you get the gist.
Well, today’s date is unique in that, no matter which way you arrange the sequence of day, month and year, you get the same number – 02/02/2020.
If we’re going by the Gregorian calendar, it’s the first since the November 11, 1111, also known as 11/11/1111. The next one won’t pop up for another 101 years, when we reach December 12, 2121, also known as 12/12/2121. After that, there’ll not be another until March 3, 3030.
So basically, soak this moment up. I know, I know, it’s tremendously exciting (you should see the scenes here in the office).
Here’s another gobsmacking fact for you. Not only is today the first palindrome in hundreds of years… it’s also the 33rd day of 2020, with 333 days left to go.
I’ll leave you with one last palindrome: wow.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.