1979

Operation Parallax

London's Capital Radio announced that Operation Parallax would soon go into effect. This was a government plan to resynchronize the British calendar. The station explained that, ever since 1945, Britain had gradually become 48 hours ahead of the rest of the world because of the constant switching back and forth from British Summer Time. To remedy this situation, the government had decided to cancel April 5 and 12 that year. Capital Radio was flooded with calls as a result of the announcement. One employer wanted to know if she had to pay her employees for the missing days. Another woman was curious about what would happen to her birthday, which fell on one of the cancelled days.