Today is a very special day - unless you're American!
By John Welford
@indexer (4852)
Leicester, England
November 8, 2018 2:31am CST
In the UK we express dates in the order day, month, year - it's the logical way of doing it because it goes in order of length. For reasons best known to themselves, Americans do it month, day, year.
Today, the 8th of November, is expressed 8.11.18 in the UK. That means that it is not only a palindrome - reading the same way forwards and backwards (if you ignore the full stops), but it looks exactly the same if you turn it upside down (and ignore the serifs on the 1s).
This is a very rare occurrence, which will not happen again until the 18th of January 2081 (and again on 18th November in that year).
Of course, if you're American, you already know about this because you were jumping up and down with delight on 11th August this year. (As it happens, so was I because it was my 66th birthday, but that's another matter!)
So do make the most of this special day. If you expect to still be around in just over 62 years' time you'll be able to repeat the heady excitement of "back-to-front and upside-down day", but I regret to say that I for one am unlikely to be able to join in your celebrations!
7 people like this
7 responses
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
8 Nov 18
You have set my mind wandering in search of other 'significant' dates and, indeed, words! I don't know that I've come up with any examples yet but here are my thoughts so far.
1) There are three transformations' which could be involved: The palindrome (transposition of order) is the most significant but there are also two rotations - (a) round the horizontal axis (the 'upside down') and (b) round the vertical axis, assuming the characters are visible from both the front and the back (in other words, a mirror rotation).
2) The only numerals which are the same when both (a) and/or (b) are applied are 0, 1, and 8. Of the rest, 6 and 9 become one another when seen upside down.
3) Is it possible to make a palindromic date if one includes the year's century as well as the tens and units?
4) Can it also be applied to the Japanese date system ([yy]yy-mm-dd)?
2 people like this
@DWDavis (25797)
• United States
9 Nov 18
You folks over there on your side of the pond use the metric way of writing the date. We use the old standard method.
Oh, wait, that doesn't apply to the calendar.
I have no idea why we do it mm/dd/yyyy. When I was in the military we used the dd/mm/yyyy format. It always made more sense to me.
I do not plan to be around in 2081. My birth certificate expires on 5 July 2076, the day after America's Tri-Centennial.
@thislittlepennyearns (68246)
• Defuniak Springs, Florida
8 Nov 18
We write it the way we do because it makes way more sense. The month comes first.
@SophiaMorros (5044)
• Belews Creek, North Carolina
8 Nov 18
I'm unlikely to be around next time myself!
I grew up in Canada and currently live in the USA. Whenever I'm filling out a document I actually have to think through whether to write the day or so h month first.
@crossbones27 (52984)
• Mojave, California
8 Nov 18
Know why because we like slang. August sounds much cooler than 13 We say August is 13 in the year of our lord 2018. I have no idea and actually the end sounds more European than American or maybe watched Braveheart to many times. 
