Decimal Day old coins were returned to the banks and in this way the bulk of them were quickly taken out of circulation. The new halfpenny, penny, and twopence coins were introduced on 15 February 1971. Within two weeks of Decimal Day, the old penny (1d) and old threepenny (3d) coins had left circulation, and old sixpences were becoming rare. On 31 August 1971, the 1d and 3d were officially withdrawn from circulation, ending the transition period. The government intended that in speech the new units would be called "new pence", but the public decided that it was clearer and quicker to
Decimal time He also suggested a week of 10 days and dividing the year into 10 "solar months". Decimal time was officially introduced during the French Revolution. Jean-Charles de Borda made a proposal for decimal time on November 5, 1792. The National Convention issued a decree on 5 October 1793: These parts were named on 24 November 1793 (4 Frimaire of the Year II). The primary divisions were called hours, and they added: Thus, midnight was called either "dix heures" (10 o'clock) or "zero heures" (0 o'clock), noon was called "cinq heures" (5 o'clock), etc. Units were either written out or abbreviated,