Thomas Lambert, the Child Who Seemingly Died Before He Was Born
1683 & dyed Feb 19 the same year What act of wizardry or—Great Scott!—time-traveling technology allowed this child to die before he was born? Alas, there is no magic to this story. The unspectacular answer is that Lambert died in 1684 and not 1683. Yet the engraver did not make a mistake. For him and his contemporaries, February did indeed belong to “the same year” as that of the previous May. The Old New Year In 1684, the New Year in England and its colonies officially began on March 25, as it had for centuries and as it would for decades more until January 1, 1752, when a parliament...
Source: mentalfloss.com