The new year of 2019 is almost upon us, and a group of mathematics boffins are celebrating that it is the first time for a century that the individual digits of the year have added up to 12!
This year - 2018 - the four digits added up to 11, and the last time that happened - before 2009, of course! - was way back in 1910, but for the four digits to add up to 12, we have to wind back the clock to 1920.
That was the year that the League of Nations was formed in Paris. It was also the year that writer F. Scott Fitzgerald published his first work 'This Side Of Paradise'.
Several other things happened in 1920. It is a popular misconception, however, that the term 'The Roaring Twenties' was coined in 1920; it wasn't until much later in the decade - possibly 1925 - that people first started using it to describe the exciting things that were happening at the time.
One of the boffins, Derek Fraction, said:
"For those who are interested, previous years whose digits added up to 12 were: 1911, 1902, 1830, 1821, 1812, 1803, and 1740."
Police are not investigating.
