February 8 ns
January 26 os
We mark certain days of the year with ‘On This Day’ posts, recalling events associated with them.
Our events are grouped under two calendars. The Gregorian ‘New Style’ (NS) is the worldwide calendar first issued at Rome in 1582. On that calendar, today is February 8. The Julian ‘Old Style’ (OS), also issued at Rome but in 46 BC, was used in Roman Britain and then in England from Anglo-Saxon times until 1752. It is still used today by roughly 100 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. On that calendar, today is January 26.
Today
Henry VII’s great-granddaughter Mary never grasped that even royalty must win the people’s respect.
Perhaps it was spending her formative years in the French court that did it, but after the teenage widow came back to be Queen of Scots, she never seemed to understand that on this side of the Channel, people-power was on the rise, and royalty could no longer behave as they pleased.
Posted December 10 2016
Today
What George Stephenson was to the railways of England, Sandford Fleming was to the railways of Canada.
At the start of the nineteenth century, railways brought a handful of struggling colonies together to form a great nation, and Sandford Fleming (1827-1915), then just a young Scottish surveyor from Kirkcaldy, played as important a part in that as any other man.
Posted January 8 2017
The Calendar below shows the year on the Roman (Gregorian or ‘New Style’) Calendar for 2025. Click on any date to see the events we have marked for it.
Roman Easter 2025: Sunday March 31
Old English Easter 2025: Sunday May 5
Christmas 2025: Thursday December 25
Old English Christmas 2025: Wednesday January 7, 2026
January
March
April
May
July
August
September
October
November