History Memes

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Scheduling issues (media.piefed.social)

submitted 1 month ago by PugJesus@piefed.social to c/historymemes@piefed.social

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 32 points 1 month ago

Explanation: The Russian Orthodox Church used the 'Julian Calendar', which predates the Catholic 'Gregorian Calendar' which corrected the distribution of leap years to fit the solar year more precisely, The Russian Empire, likewise, used the Julian Calendar due to its close association with the Orthodox Church, even after most Catholic and Protestant nations had adopted the more accurate Gregorian Calendar.

... this could lead to some confusion when traveling between countries/cultures, like in 1908, when the Russian Olympics team arrived late and was unable to compete in several of the early events.

[–] wander1236@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sadly this probably isn't true

https://www.rbth.com/history/331074-russia-late-for-olympics-1908

https://www.iflscience.com/did-russia-miss-the-1908-olympics-because-they-were-still-using-a-calendar-from-45-bce-82389

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nikolai Panin-Kolomenkin, the man who won gold in 1908, explained it in his memoirs: “Almost every foreign country had a national Olympic committee that provided constant cooperation among the different sports organizations of their countries. But in Russia… we had only separate athletes at the 1908 Olympics who were going there with the support of their clubs, or just on their own.”

No wonder there were just six athletes from Russia that year! Also, some Russian athletes could have confused the two calendars and failed to participate. But it would be wrong to say that the Russian national team was late for the Olympics, simply because there was no official Russian national team in 1908.

I feel like that's legitimate to point out, but also that it doesn't really dispute the core idea of the meme. I'm looking at a few respectable-looking books that reference the matter, I'll check them out (tomorrow, not tonight, 'tis late) and follow their source citations to see if I can dig deeper.

EDIT: As far as I can tell (and honestly I don't find it a thrilling subject and don't have any expertise on it), it seems like the Russian team was late, but not for any of the events they competed in. So whether you want to interpret that as intentional or accidental is probably core to this.