While studying for my History of Science exam, I read up about Jesuits and astronomy. Trust me, it's the most accessible and most interesting thing in the entire module.

Apparently, the Jesuits reformed the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. The fix was needed because of an error in the original calendar established by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, who mistimed his year so that it ran eleven minutes short--a deficit that accumulated gradually over the centuries. By adopting a system of mean rather than absolute motions, Clavius's commission implemented the leap-century rule, which cancels the leap year when it falls on a century year, except in those century years divisible by four. In other words, 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but the year 2000 is one--a formula that creates a mean year very close to the true year, and compensating for the 11 min error.

I could do with that total amount of time deficit now. Can we change that deficit into a plus please?