With one Tuesday already past and four more planned before the end of the month, June of 2010 is on track to tie the existing record for the most Tuesdays ever in a single month. The current record of five was set centuries ago, not long after the concepts of "Tuesday" and "month" were established. However, the significance of the record was not appreciated until much later, when people started eating pizza on Tuesdays and soon realized that, hey, more Tuesdays? More pizza!
The current record for the fewest Tuesdays in a given month (three) was set in Italy in 1582 when Pope Gregory decreed that eleven days be dropped from October in order to synchronize the calendar with the tropical year. This record was subsequently tied in other countries as they adopted the Gregorian calendar. Fortunately for Tuesday pizza eaters everywhere, three-Tuesday months have not been seen in recent times.
Will we ever see a six-Tuesday month? Most experts agree that the outlook is dim. Fundamentalist Tuesday pizza-eating groups accept this as a given, and limit themselves to a maximum of five meetings per month. Other, more progressive Tuesday pizza eaters allow "supplemental" or "emergency" pizza to be eaten on certain non-Tuesdays when they find that once a week just isn't enough.
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