Mark your calendars: Palindrome dates continue for the next eight days

Inauguration Day was historic for several firsts — among them are former Sen. Kamala Harris being the first Black and South Asian woman Vice President, and Georgia welcoming its first Black and Jewish senators with Rev. Ralphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.

But you may not realize that it was historic for another reason, too. Yesterday marked the first in a string of dates that are the same forward and backward.

The word for this is “palindrome” and the dates will continue consecutively through Jan. 29, or 1/29/21.

If you keep up with the Farmers’ Almanac, you would have already known this was coming. Five-digit palindromes will occur for 10 days and the one that emerged on 1/20/21 is the first on Inauguration Day. The next one won’t happen until the next millennium on January 20, 3021.

The annual American periodical reported that Aziz Inan, Ph.D., who works at the University of Portland, Oregon as an electrical engineering professor, has been investigating palindrome dates for over 10 years. He said 2021 is a special year since it contains 22 palindrome dates, including a four-digit palindrome that happened on 1/2/21.

Meanwhile, Twitter users have remarked on the fact that Inauguration Day was a #PalindromeDay.

January won’t be the only month with palindrome dates.

December will feature nine dates of mirrored dates. That begins on Dec. 1 and lasts through Dec. 9.