Philippines · 1844–1845
The Tuesday
the Philippines skipped.
Monday 30 December 1844 was followed by Wednesday 1 January 1845. The governor had ordered a date removed from the calendar so the islands would count their days like their Asian neighbours.
A decision, a calendar and the document behind it.
It’s in Asia. Why did it have a different date?
Find the Philippines on the left of the map, beside Asia. Under Spanish colonial rule, its connection with the Americas across the Pacific had left a difference in the reckoning of days. The Spanish Philippines retained the American date, a day behind the date used by Asian neighbours.
The Philippines used the American date, but its clocks did not show the time in Mexico. The difference was the calendar date, not when the sun rose.
Manila · 30 December 1844
What comes after Monday?
This time, Wednesday. The decree omitted Tuesday 31 December for that year only.
Monday 30 was followed by Wednesday 1. Tuesday 31 was left out of the local calendar.
Who made the decision?
Narciso Clavería was governor and captain general of the Philippines under Spanish rule. On 16 August 1844, he decreed the change with the agreement of the Archbishop of Manila. The text says the purpose was to align the reckoning of days with Europe, China and other countries east of the Cape of Good Hope.
The archbishop’s involvement matters because the calendar also organised religious life. The order allowed the calendar for 1845 to begin without alterations: the date removed was the last one of 1844. Read the opening of the decree, p. 13 ↗
The document · Original Spanish
The instruction in one sentence
«que por este año, solamente, se suprima el Martes 31 de Diciembre, como si realmente hubiese pasado»For that year only, Tuesday 31 December was to be omitted as though it had already passed. This is our translation of the passage reproduced by Jerolim Benko in 1890, on page 14. The next instruction makes Wednesday 1 January 1845 follow Monday 30 December.
A printed reproduction of a copy certified in 1889, not a photograph of the original 1844 decree.
How did the text reach us?
Benko describes efforts in Manila to obtain documentary proof of the change. In September 1889, Eugenio Netter, administrator of the archdiocese, sent a certified copy of the decree. Benko reproduced the text and explained its authentication.
In 1891, George C. Hurlbut printed it again in the American Geographical Society’s notes. He identified Benko’s booklet as his source. This helps us follow the document’s circulation, but it is not a second independent copy of the original. Hurlbut, pp. 102–103 ↗
What changed, and what remains to be checked?
The order’s effect is specific: one date disappears from 1844 and the following year starts on Wednesday 1 January. The count of days no longer runs a day behind the places named in the decree.
These sources do not tell us how each person handled payments, contracts or celebrations. They also do not establish that all Spanish Pacific possessions implemented the measure together. Samoa’s rules from 2011 cannot be applied retrospectively to the Philippines in 1844.
Miguel Luque Talaván’s study identifies records in Spain’s Archivo Histórico Nacional: Ultramar, Filipinas, Gobierno, legajo 5157, expediente 13, documents 1–2. We still need to inspect that file and the royal order it cites. The certified reproduction already documents who ordered the jump and which date was omitted. Luque Talaván, 1997, pp. 236–237 ↗
A question as you read
Did the order draw a line across the entire Pacific?
Discover the answer
The order supports the Philippines’ change of date. It does not establish a complete ocean route or show that every Spanish possession changed together. That is why the atlas labels reconstructed sections.
Reproduction of the decree, p. 14 →Now look at the outlines
Compare the 1814–1844 and 1845–1846 drawings. The Philippine change helps explain why the large westward detour disappears. The full shape remains a provisional reconstruction: the decree establishes a count of dates, not every point of a line across the ocean.
Compare the Philippines before and after →Sources for this story
- Jerolim Benko · Das Datum auf den Philippinen (1890) ↗. Vienna, Carl Gerold’s Sohn, pp. 13–14. Reproduction of the certified copy and its provenance; the main documentary source.
- George C. Hurlbut · Geographical Notes (1891) ↗. Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, vol. 23, pp. 102–103. A printed witness derived from Benko.
- Miguel Luque Talaván · Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa (1997) ↗. Revista Complutense de Historia de América, 23, pp. 236–237. Identifies the Archivo Histórico Nacional file.
- IANA · Time Zone Database, asia file ↗. Asia/Manila comment and record: technical corroboration, not a substitute for the decree.