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in 1582 with the Gregorian calendar, Little-Known Facts About Calendars
which refined leap year rules. It The Roman Calendar’s Erratic Start:
omitted leap years for years divisible Before the Julian reform, the Roman
by 100, unless divisible by 400. This calendar was notoriously chaotic.
system corrected the drift and Months varied in length, and years
remains the most widely used could be extended or shortened at
calendar today. political whim. In fact, the year 46 BCE,
known as the “Year of Confusion,”
The Mayan Marvel lasted 445 days to realign the
The Mayan civilization developed one calendar.
of the most sophisticated calendrical The Missing Days of 1752: When Britain
systems in the ancient world. Their adopted the Gregorian calendar in
Long Count calendar, which tracked 1752, they had to adjust by skipping 11
time in 394-year periods called days. People went to bed on
baktuns, famously ended a cycle on September 2 and woke up on
December 21, 2012. Contrary to September 14, leading to public outcry
popular “end-of-the-world” myths, and myths of riots demanding the
this date marked the beginning of a return of “lost” days.
new cycle, akin to resetting a cosmic The French Revolutionary Calendar: In
odometer. 1793, France adopted a decimal-based
calendar to reflect Enlightenment
ideals. It divided the year into 12
months of 30 days, with 10-day weeks.
The system was abandoned in 1805
due to its impracticality.
Ethiopian Timekeeping: Ethiopia uses a
calendar based on the Coptic system,
which has 13 months: 12 of 30 days
and a 13th month of 5 or 6 days.
Interestingly, their calendar is about
seven years behind the Gregorian
calendar.
My Indigo Sun - 13
