Time to change calendars
We all love to get rid of old things before the new year, replacing them with new ones. One of such important updates is the calendar, which we change with the coming of the New Year.
The story of the appearance of calendars published in the first issue of all newspapers and magazines after the New Year is very interesting. The word "calendar" - from the ancient Roman "kalenda", means the first days of each month - the day of repayment of debts and interest. Therefore, calendars originally served as debt books.
Equal time intervals were based on the movement of the Sun and Moon. Thus, the lunar, solar and lunisolar calendars appeared. In the modern world, a calendar is a division of time throughout the year into months, weeks and days of the week.
Different peoples had different calendars - the Romans counted the current year from the time of the founding of Rome, and the Egyptians - the years of the ruling dynasty of the pharaohs.
The Julian calendar was invented by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and he referred to the regularity of natural phenomena. The emperor added two more months to the ten months of the year, and the length of the year became 365.5 days. So the beginning of the year was January 1. And before Caesar, the Roman year was 304 days and began on March 1. He also introduced the concept of a leap year.
The error in the Julian calendar was corrected by Pope Gregory XIII. In 1582, he introduced a new chronology, where he tied the vernal equinox to March 21, which had been constantly shifting until that moment.
The new calculation was the most accurate and corrected the time shift of ten days. The Gregorian calendar has established precise meanings for leap years. So leap years became those whose value is a multiple of 400 (for example, 1600, 2000). The discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian calendar is three days for every four hundred years.
The week by day began to be distinguished around the 3rd century and the names of the days were associated with the heavenly bodies: Monday - Moon, Tuesday - Mars, Wednesday - Mercury, Thursday - Jupiter, Friday - Venus, Saturday - Saturn, Sunday - Sun.
The lunar calendar is based on the movement of the moon and has a month of 29.53 days. The lunar calendar is used by some Muslim countries. Many gardeners stick to the phases of the moon when they begin planting. Also, those who believe in its influence on creativity, money and relationships are guided by the Moon.
