The 21st February 2012 is an unusual and rare date. 21.02.2012 is what is known as a palindromic date. That’s when the date reads the same backwards or forwards.
Although these dates do not occur frequently, we are currently going through a palindromic phase. That’s because these dates tend to happen in clusters in the first few centuries of a millennium.
Anybody born on or after 10.02.2001 and living for an average life span of 80 years will see 25 palindromic dates in their lifetime. However, had you been born in 1920 and lived for 80 years you would not been alive for a single one. In fact, until the recent palindromic date of 10.02.2001 there had not been one since 29.11.1192. That is a gap of just over 808 years.
There will be 24 more palindromic dates this century and they will all occur in February, the 2nd month of the year. In the 22nd century there will be 31 palidromic dates and 31 in the 23rd century. I’m referring to dateswritten in the European style DD/MM/YYYY.
If you choose to write the date in othe American style MM/DD/YYYY then the next one will be on Feb 2nd 2020. After that date there will be 9 more palindromes in this century, 12 in the 22nd century and12 more in the 23rd.
After Dec 29th 2192 (29.12.2192), there will be a long gap of 711 years before the next palindromic period. These will happen as we enter the third millennium.
Palindromic numbers appear on our clocks too. Every day we experience 16 palindromic times on a 4 digit 24 hour digital clock. 00:00, 01:10, 02:20, 03:30, 04:40, 05:50, 10:01, 11:11, 12:21, 13:31, 14:41, 15:51, 20:02, 21:12, 22:22 and 23:32.