It is time to change Calendars, let us know a bit more about them.

As we close the year end and welcome the new year with all the joy and zeal, let us know a bit about the first thing that changes with the year: The Calendar. In this age of technology and gadgets, many people still use the traditional wall calendar or other printed forms. It is arguably the most efficient tool in Indian household to track the absence of milkman or the maid.

As we near the year end, I thought it will be apt time to talk about our friend on the wall, the Calendar. Oh! don’t worry, I am not going tell you about leap years and century years and stuff, I know you know that already (although you may find one of our older posts about leap second a little interesting). So right before we change the calendars, let us talk about how calendar has changed over time.

Based on whether the calendar represents the cycle for sun or moon, it can be a Solar Calendar or Lunar Calendar. However, most of the early calendars were lunisolar, considering both lunar and solar positions. Nearly every civilization has had its own form of calendar, oldest recorded physical calendars being as old as the bronze age and iron age. Bronze Age Egyptian and Sumerian calendars are among the oldest forms.  

Let us know a bit more about few popular forms of calendars in the history.

Pre-Julian Roman Calendar: It came into existence around 700 BC and Romans attributed this calendar to be formulated by Romulus, legendary founder of Rome and their first king. It had 10 months and started in the spring season from month of March. The months had 30 or 31 days, and it had 50 days for winters which were not divided into any month. This form of the roman calendar was called the legendary 10-month calendar. Many more forms were existent and in use, one of which being the Republican Calendar, that had January and February as winter months. As suggested by the name, all these forms were existent and in use before the acceptance of Julian Calendar.

Julian Calendar: As evident by its name, Julian calendar was proposed by roman dictator and historian, Julius Caesar in year 46 BC. It was adopted from 1^st January, 45 BC and was the most widely used calendar until it got reformed in to the Gregorian Calendar in 1582. Julian calendar introduced the concept of leap year; with normal year being 365 days and leap year being 366 days long. Leap year occurred after every three normal years, thus making average year as 365.25 days long. The actual solar year being 365.24217 days, over time, Julian Calendar drifts away from the actual solar year. Before Julian calendar, roman calendars added a leap month periodically. In 46 BC, Julius Caesar added more days to align the next year (45 BC) properly and Julian calendar was adopted. 46 BC had 445 days and is also known as year of confusion (annus confusionis).

Gregorian Calendar: This is the calendar we use currently. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII who led the reform for its adoption. This calendar further tried to align the year with solar year and the current rule of leap years came into place. Non-century years divisible by 4 and century years divisible by 400 are considered as leap years with 366 days. This makes the average year length as 365.2425 days which is fairly close to actual solar cycle of 364.2422 days. It was first adopted in year 1582 in Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, Italy and few more countries.

What happened in September 1752?

Great Britain and its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in September 1752. While most of their neighbors and trade partners were already using Gregorian Calendar, Great Britain was using Julian Calendar (with 25^th march as New Year’s Day) till 1752, thus causing obvious confusion and inconveniences. In September 1752, Great Britain’s Parliament (with Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 also known as Chesterfield's Act ) adopted the Gregorian Calendar. To align the dates with Gregorian Calendar being followed in other countries, calendar was advanced by 11 days. September 2^nd, Wednesday was followed by September 14^th, Thursday. 1752 thus was a short year with 355 days.

Nerd Note 1: Extra days or months inserted to calendar in order to keep it synchronized with solar (or lunar or both) cycles are called intercalary days or months

Nerd Note 2: Julian Calendar is still in use in few Christian communities like Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodoxy.

WittyScribble wishes its readers a very happy new year and hope that we were able to bring to you some interesting knowledge about everyday things. With the promise of continuing to uncover more interesting stuff next year, we wish you all the health, joy and success for the new year and years to come.

And as always,

Thanks for reading.

Ayush!!!