It’s the date the world has been waiting for, for more than 900 years. Sunday – 02/02/2020 – is the first “global” palindrome since 11/11/1111.

Unlike other palindromic dates, such as 10/02/2001, 2 February, 2020 is considered a global palindrome because it is exactly the same written both in the DD/MM/YYYY format as well as the US standard of MM/DD/YYYY.

And for nations like China, where the year comes first, 2020/02/02 also works.

The second of February also happens to be the 33rd day of the year with 333 days remaining.

Okay as well as 02/02/2020 being #PalindromeDay I’ve just found out it’s the 33rd day of the year with 333 days to go and that makes me a very happy maths boy indeed 💙 — Harry Baker (@harrybakerpoet) February 2, 2020

A palindrome is any number or phrase that reads the same backwards as forwards.

For most people, a global palindrome happens only once in the their lifetime. The moment sparked a celebration of palindromes on social media.

For #PalindromeDay (02 02 2020) a musical palindrome by Villa-Lobos.

Here's the first bar of Etude No. 1 for guitar: pic.twitter.com/7HYIBbEH3H — Rodrigo Roderico (@RodericoRodrigo) February 2, 2020

Read this one backwards!

• This article was amended on 6 February 2020. An earlier version incorrectly said that the next global palindrome will be on 12/02/2021; in fact, this does not work for all date formats.