What is the significance of 1/1/1753 in SQL Server?

The decision to use 1st January 1753 (1753-01-01) as the minimum date value for a datetime in SQL Server goes back to its Sybase origins.

The significance of the date itself though can be attributed to this man.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. Who steered the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 through the British Parliament. This legislated for the adoption of the Gregorian calendar for Britain and its then colonies.

There were some missing days _{(internet archive link)} in the British calendar in 1752 when the adjustment was finally made from the Julian calendar. September 3, 1752 to September 13, 1752 were lost.

Kalen Delaney explained the choice this way

So, with 12 days lost, how can you compute dates? For example, how can you compute the number of days between October 12, 1492, and July 4, 1776? Do you include those missing 12 days? To avoid having to solve this problem, the original Sybase SQL Server developers decided not to allow dates before 1753. You can store earlier dates by using character fields, but you can't use any datetime functions with the earlier dates that you store in character fields.

The choice of 1753 does seem somewhat anglocentric however as many catholic countries in Europe had been using the cal