[Amnorix]

February 24.

1582. Pope Gregory XIII issues the papal bull Inter gravissimas introducing the Gregorian calendar system. Non-Catholic countries refuse to recognize the new system for quite some time (some into the 20th century) resulting in 300 years of occassional confusion and difficulties in coordinating dates among various countries. Further, despite the adoption of the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes, Orthodox countries still use the Julian calendar for religious purposes, resulting in such oddities as different dates for Christmas and Easter among different Christian countries, except, of course, for the Finnish Orthodox Church, which apparently realizing that the rest of the Orthodox Churches are just being juvenile, has in fact adopted the Gregorian calendar.

1803. The United States Supreme Court issues what is quite probably its most important ruling ever in Marbury v. Madison, establishing the concept of judicial review.

1917. The US Ambassador to Great Britian is given the Zimmerman Telegram. This famous telegram was published in full in the United States, and caused a public furor and contributed to the declaration of war by the United States against Germany and its allies on April 6th of that same year. Teh Zimmerman telegram was named after the Foreign Minister of the Imperial German governmnet, who sent the telegram to Mexico offering an alliance with Mexico in the event of the US declaring war against Germany. In return, Germany offered financial support and support for teh return of territories lost in the Mexican-American War.