Talk:HMS Windsor Castle (1679)

Year of launch
This article was originally entitled HMS Windsor Castle (1678) due to a misunderstanding of the source data. Until September 1752, the Julian calendar was in force in Britain, and the calendar year ended on 24 April, not on 31 December as it does now. Thus most archivists (including those recording state documents) at that time recorded the year (for dates between 1 January and 24 April inclusive) as being the same year as the preceding December, with the year only incremented at 25 April. For example, the day after 31 December 1678 was often recorded as "1 January 1678" rather than a "1 January 1679". Sadly the practice varied, and some sources would record it as "1 January 1678/9". The Windsor Castle was launched on 4 March 1678/9 (i.e. a date we would now record as being in March 1679 rather than in March 1678 (by normal historical convention) and thus the title of this article had to change. Rif Winfield (talk) 12:01, 18 November 2009 (UTC)