Monday, February 22, 2016

Get Ready to Say Goodbye to the 19th Century

Did you know there are currently only two people alive who were (provably) born in the 19th century?

6 comments:

Adam said...

I think there is a podcast episode of 'Only Human' that deals with the woman who lives in Brooklyn.

You should consider doing a podcast.

Adam said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Four, if you believe that the 19th century ended on 12/31/1900.

Jim Leff said...

Yeah, I never understood that. I remember there were holdouts who refused to celebrate 12/31/1999.

PZ said...

The holdouts were right. The calendar, while based on an arbitrary starting point, is the calendar, and if you insist that a century has 100 years in it, then the 19th century ended at the end of 1900, which, incidentally, was not a leap year.

Jim Leff said...

There is no right/wrong. Celebrating certain numbers for seeming "round" is a completely arbitrary thing in the first place. So seemingness isn't something a vast majority can get wrong. It's not a contestable fact that McDonalds seems delicious!

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