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The Seventeenth Day of February

--On this date in 1753 in Sweden, tomorrow will be March 1, as the country switches to the Gregorian calendar, from the Julian version. The Julian calendar had been introduced in Rome in 46 BCE by Juilius Caesar, with each fourth year having 366 days. The Julian year was over eleven minutes longer than the solar year, and over a long period of years, holidays and the equinoxes fell at inappropriate times. The Gregorian calendar introduced by Gregory XIII in 1582, corrected the glaring errors in the Julian calendar and is the calendar still now in general use throughout most of Western civilization and many parts of Asia. Great Britain and the American colonies adopted usage of the Gregorian calendar in 1752, one year prior to Sweden, as noted above. When Great Britain adopted the calendar they went from September 2, 1752, to the next day becoming September 14. The Soviet Union began using the Gregorian version of the yearly calendar in 1918. Because of still existing discrepancies between the Gregorian calendar and the actual solar year, proposals have been made for a standard 13 month calendar of equal parts, to be adopted and utilized worldwide, but thus far to date, none has been established.

--Born on this date in 1792, in Estonia, embryologist Karl Ernst von Baer, known for describing the structure of the mammalian egg for the first time.

--Born on this date in 1844, American merchant, (Aaron) Montgomery Ward, credited with initiating mail-order shopping.

--Born on this date in 1936, in Saint Simons Island, Georgia, American football player and movie actor, James Nathaniel Brown. Jim Brown topped the list of NFL running backs for yardage gained, eight of the nine seasons he played. Brown played the role of Robert Jefferson in the popular World War II film, The Dirty Dozen. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1917.

For more information on what happened today in American History, visit the Library of Congress American Memory collection for "Today in History: February 17

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