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It's not just on fedi:[ . . . ] Top-level comments need to be substantiated, historical answers to the question and the rest need to be reasonably on-topic. Not layman speculation. Not which arbitrary standard is best. Not so-and-so uses so-and-so.
I hate to be so stern about it but seriously... 120 of 160 comments [deleted].The question?
When did the USA originally start using the mm/dd/yyyy format and for what reason?farside.link/teddit/r/AskHistoβ¦
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In the 40 remaining comments there are some interesting and surprising finds. In particular, mm/dd/yyyy, with digits, was not introduced with computers, contrary to what many are assuming:
I have been working with a collection of mid-18th to early 19th-century English correspondence, and the mm/dd/yyyy format is used on occasion. Sometimes the same person will date a letter, say, 4/10/1797 (for April 10th), and the next letter will be 12/4 (for April 12th). I'd previously had no idea that this format was in use so long ago (mm/dd or exclusively numbers).farside.link/teddit/r/AskHistoβ¦