22 02 2022: What is a palindrome?

Today is a palindrome day - not only that, but it's the only one we'll get this year!

A palindrome is a number, word or sentence that can be read the same way forwards and backwards.

So today, 22 February, looks like this as a number: 22 02 2022. As you can see, it's the same back to front.

It's quite a rare thing to happen - in the format that we use to write the date in the UK, dd-mm-yyyy, there have only been seven so far this century.

The first was on 10 February 2001 (10 02 2001) and the last will be 29 February 2092 (29 02 2092) which is even more special because it will fall on a leap day!

It's not just dates that can be palindromes. They can also be words or sentences, and usually punctuation, grammar and capitalisation is ignored. Here are some examples:

Do you have a favourite palindrome? Let us know in the comments below!