Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1884 — Concerning Calendars. [ARTICLE]

Concerning Calendars.

A definition of the word calendar is given as a method of numbering and arranging days, weeks, months, and years; also as a mechanical contrivance for registering that arrangement. Various nations and sects have adopted different methods of measuring time, dating from some real or imaginary epoch in their existence. The following are the principal calendars, and show the place that the year 1883 will occupy in the world’s history. Anno mnndi (year of the world), 5.883. Anno Domini (year of our Lord), 1.883. Jewish year, 5,643. Julian period, 6,595. Hegira, or flight of Mahomet, 1,298. A. U. C. foundation of Rome, 2,635. Independence of the United States, 106-7.

Reign of Queen Victoria, 45-6. Science fixes the year 1883, A. D., as the 5,883 d year since tho creation of the world; the Julian period places it as the 6,595 th. For all practical purposes the one answers as well as the other. . _ __ The Jewish year is based upon the calculation that the world was created .3,760 years before Christ was born, which, added to those since the birth of Christ, gives 5,643 as the Jewish year of the world. The Jewish year is supposed to have varied at different periods in length, consisting«of twelve or thirteen months of twenty or thirty days each. The Roman calendar divided the year into three months, comprising 304 days, about 738 years before Christ. This year was fifty-one days less than the lunar year, and sixty-one days less than the solar year, corresponding in no degree with the present seasons.

The Julian calendar was based upon the solar year of 365 days and six hours, 45 B. C. The Emperor Julius Cassar, acting upon the evidence and advice of astronomers, made provision, at this time, for the excess of the solar year over the number of days by introducing bissextile or leap year, when the year was 366 days, the name being derived from two sixes. The Gregorian calendar commenced in 1582, A. D. At the time of the Julian reform the true solar calendar was known to be composed of 365 days, five hours and forty-nine minutes. In 1582 this difference had amounted to ten days. To correct this error Pope Gregory ordained that that year should have only 356 days, by which order the sth of October became the 15th of October. To prevent a recurrence of this difficulty it was ordered that the first year in each century should not be bissextile or leap year excepting every fourth century. Thus the first years of the eighteenth and nineteenth were not leap years, and 1900 will not be, but the year 2000 will be, bissextile. In this way the difference between the civil and the natural year will not amount to a day in 5,000 years. In Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy, the Pope was exactly obeyed. In France, the change took place in the same year, by calling the 10th the 20th of December. In the Low Countries, the change was from the 15th of December to the 25th; but it was resisted by the Protestant part of the community till the year 1700. The Catholic nations, in general, adopted the style ordained by their sovereign pontiff; but the Protestants would not receive even a purely scientific improvement from such hands. The Lutherans of Germany, Switzerland, and of the Low Countries at length gave way in 1700, when it had become necessary to omit eleven instead of ten days. A bill to this effect had been brought before the I%rliament of England in 1585, but does not appear to have gone beyond a second reading in the House of Lords. It was not till 1751, and after great inconvenience had been experienced for nearly two centuries from the difference of the reckoning, that an act was passed (24 George 11., 1751) for equalizing the style in Great Britain and Ireland with that used in other countries of Europe. It was then enacted that eleven days should be omitted after the 2d of September, 1752, so that the ensuing day should be the 14th. Russia is now the only country which adheres to the old style.