Five Sundays in August 2010 and other finds in the birthday month

First of August Sunday morning blog.

My mother read to me an SMS message the other day which said something about August 2010 as having "...5 Sundays, 5 Mondays and 5 Tuesdays" and that "this won't happen again in another 823 years".

I checked the wall calendar and fired up my calendar in the Dashboard, scrolled through all the months of 2010 out of curiosity and found out three other 5-day combinations-in-a-month. These are:

• May 2010 with 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays
• July 2010 with 5 Thursdays, 5 Fridays and 5 Saturdays, and
• December with 5 Wednesdays, 5 Thursdays and 5 Fridays

So I guess August and May 2010 are special to others because it has 5 Sundays, Sunday being a sacred day to most Christians as it is a "day of obligation," meaning, the Christian world takes a rest from all worldly obligations to give of themselves to THAT day of Obligation—to worship, ask for forgiveness and give thanks.

While looking for more information on this supposed phenomenon, I came upon entries about August 2009, which, on the other hand, had 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays just like what May 2010 had (both occurrences escaped my attention).

In 1187, or 823 years ago, the Gregorian calendar hadn't existed yet (it was introduced in 1582) so there was no ado about this strange happenstance.

I haven't come across any other reference about it happening in 823 years interval, but I guess it means the next Sunday-Monday-Tuesday combination in 2833¹ will be referencing this year's, unless the Gregorian calendar is changed to something else that befits the future. I don't know.

It's something to think about over late-morning breakfast coffee.

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¹The year should have been 2832 as pointed out by reader Matt in the comments below. Thanks, Matt. 
Image, top: Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte mug from zazzle.com
Calendar images grabbed from my Dashboard, added 04 August 2010

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