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Happy Palindromic Day.

The date is unique as most people don't see this kind in a lifetime.

A palindrome is any word, phrase or sequence of numbers that reads the same whether you read it forward or backward, such as "mom," "race car" or "tacocat." Author James Joyce invented "tattarrattat," which is supposed to be the sound of a knock on the door and the longest single-word palindrome in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Today is a very special occasion -- the date is a palindrome, meaning it is the same when read forwards and backwards.

It is February 2, 2020, or 02/02/2020, in both the MM/DD/YYYY format and the DD/MM/YYYY format. At just after 2 a.m., it was 02:02:20 on 02/02/2020.

This is the only time such a date will occur this century.

The previous palindrome date in all formats came 909 years ago on 11/11/1111. The next will come in 101 years on 12/12/2121 and after that there will not be another until 03/03/3030.