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The leap year is February 29, not December 32 due to a Roman calendar quirk
- 1970-01-01 3y agoI think we're going to need cities on other planets before Earth's horrible calendar is fixed.
- timbit42 3y agoWhat are we going to need to switch from base 10 to base 12?
- 1970-01-01 3y agoI'm convinced the desire to switch from Earth-centric time to a solar-centric time will be the only thing capable of forcing our Julian calendar into obsolescence.
- timbit42 3y agoThat doesn't answer my question.
- rappatic 3y agoJulius Caesar reformed the calendar in part because it had historically been manipulated for political reasons. Roman magistrates were elected for a period of years, and the Pontifex Maximus (chief priest) was in charge of the calendar, so he would often shorten the years when his political opponents were in power and lengthen the years of his political allies.
- zaps 3y agoThose wacky Romans
- Aardwolf 3y agoSeptember literally means 7, october means 8, november means 9 and december means 10. Why did someone decide to move the beginning of the year from march to january and ruin this naming schema anyway?!
- sinuhe69 3y agoI still like the earth date approach the most: exactly 4 weeks, 28 days a month, 13 months a year and 1 or 2 special earth dates to celebrate depends on whether the year is a leap year or not. Very neat and perpetual :D
- golergka 3y agoAlso, romans thought that even numbers are unlucky — so I think it's natural they would prefer another odd numbered month to an even one.
- acadapter 3y agoSummary: The historical start of the year is March 1st. That's also why some months have misleading Latin names that are off-by-2.
- euroderf 3y agoI recall reading that the off-by-2 is because a Caesar decided to insert the two months named for Julius and Augustus. But I guess this idea is wrong ?
- throw0101c 3y ago> The historical start "Historical" meaning going back to the Roman Republic: > We can partly thank the Roman king Numa Pompilius. According to tradition, during his reign (c. 715–673 BCE) Numa revised the Roman republican calendar so that January replaced March as the first month. It was a fitting choice, since January was named after Janus, the Roman god of all beginnings; March celebrated Mars, the god of war. (Some sources claim that Numa also created the month of January.) However, there is evidence that January 1 was not made the official start of the Roman year until 153 BCE. > In 46 BCE Julius Caesar introduced more changes, though the Julian calendar, as it became known, retained January 1 as the year’s opening date. * https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-the-new-year-start-on-january-1 https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-the-new-year-start... > The Romans did not have records of their early calendars but, like modern historians, assumed the year originally began in March on the basis of the names of the months following June. The consul M. Fulvius Nobilior (r. 189 BC) wrote a commentary on the calendar at his Temple of Hercules Musarum that claimed January had been named for Janus because the god faced both ways,[83][where?] suggesting it had been instituted as a first month.[citation needed] It was, however, usually said to have been instituted along with February, whose nature and festivals suggest it had originally been considered the last month of the year. The consuls' term of office—and thus the order of the years under the republic—seems to have changed several times. Their inaugurations were finally moved to January 1(Kal. Ian.) in 153 BC to allow Q. Fulvius Nobilior to attack Segeda in Spain during the Celtiberian Wars, before which they had occurred on March 15 (Eid. Mart.).[87] There is reason to believe the inauguration date had been May 1during the 3rd century BC until 222 BC[citation needed] and Livy mentions earlier inaugurations on May 15 (Eid. Mai.), July 1 (Kal. Qui.), August 1 (Kal. Sex.), October 1(Kal. Oct.), and December 15 (Eid. Dec.).[88][where?] Under the Julian calendar, the year began on January 1 but years of the Indiction cycle began on September 1. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Years
- throw0101c 3y agoFunny story about the year 2000 that does not involve Y2K: "Everyone" knows that leap years occur on year divisible by 4 ('first rule'). The second rule to them is that if a year is divisible by 100 (1800, 1900, …2000), then it is not a leap year. So a lot of folks did not have their systems/software have February 29 in the year 2000. But there is a third rule: if the year is divisible by 400 (like 1600… and 2000) it is a leap year. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year#Gregorian_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year#Gregorian_calendar * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Accuracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Accuracy Lots of folks missed the 'third rule'. Hilarity ensued. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#On_29_February_and_1_March_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#On_29_Februa...
- PopAlongKid 3y ago>Everyone" knows that leap years occur on year divisible by 4 ('first rule'). Actually, I think that's the only rule most people know. I think the "funny story" is actually the opposite: most people were treating 2000 as an ordinary every-4-year leap year, did not know about the 100 divisor, but were inadvertently saved by the 400 divisor. The Wikipedia link does document some cases of what you say (yes on the 2nd rule, omitting the 3rd rule) but I think there were far, far more cases of simply assuming only the 1st rule applied.
- delecti 3y agoAgreed. The fact that y2k was even a concern in the first place suggests that vanishingly few systems were made with century-scale foresight.
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- manojlds 3y agoWho are these people and did they not learn these in school?
- vivzkestrel 3y agothey could have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble by having 13 months with 28 days each, no cross calendar day stuff, no leap year stuff, would be truly the most perfect calendar ever made forever and would simplify working of everything on the planet by a mile
- laerus 3y agoand then also remove timezones. Why should everyone have a different number to represent their time depending on the sun's position relative to them. I don't mind, for example, waking up at 2:00 and sleeping at 18:00 if these numbers just happen to match my current sleeping routine.
- foolswisdom 3y agoWhat? 13*28=364 So, missing ~1.25 days every year (instead of ~0.25 days each year with a 365 day calendar). How does this solve leap years?
- roland35 3y ago1 or 2 "year day" holidays at the end of the calendar which aren't part of any month
- dave4420 3y agoAnd this is supposed to be simpler?
- thfuran 3y agoI propose that we just extend "year day" to cover the entire year and leave only a single month called Null. This solves not only leap days but also leap seconds and even timezones: The time in year day isn't part of any month, day, hour, or minute so there's no problem.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoI thought that this was so we could represent all days of the month using 5 bits.