The Calendar
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
What's the date today?
The answer depends on who you are, how you worship and where you live: there are enough different calendars in use throughout the world today to confuse even a computer – talk about Y2K!
The calendar most commonly used is the Gregorian calendar, which is just entering a new millenium: AD 2000. It is based on the Julian calendar, which was commissioned by Julius Caesar in 45BC, and was 365days plus six hours long, with a leap year every four years. However, the actual time it takes for the Earth to revolve round the sun is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 36 seconds. The discrepancy gradually added up until by 1545, Easter was adrift by nearly a month. Pope Gregory had the error corrected by Jesuit astronomers and the calendar was renamed the Gregorian calendar.
You would expect it to be all plain sailing from then on, but religious differences arose to cause trouble, as they so often do. Protestant and Orthodox countries were reluctant to accept a calendar mandated by a Catholic Pope, and stuck to the Julian calendar for a couple of centuries longer, until the difference had grown to 11 days.
England and its American colonies changed to the Gregorian calendar on September 3rd, 1752, which became September 14th. People rioted in the streets, yelling “give us back our eleven days”, and George Washington, entering into the spirit of the thing, had his birthday changed from February 11 to February 22.
The Jewish calendar, in which AD 2000 equates with 5760, dates from the age of Solomon and counts from the supposed beginning of Creation, the “time of waste and void” referred to in Genesis 1:1. It is a 12 month religious calendar based on the agricultural year and has 52 weeks of seven days, using the Sabbath as a week divider.
Christianity, for most of its religious festivals, adheres to the Jewish calendar.
The Islamic calendar was first introduced in AD638 and has deep religious and historical significance. The start of a new month is marked by the actual sighting of the crescent moon at a given locale, so there can be worldwide differences in the observance of Islamic dates. AD 2000 is 1420 in the Islamic calendar.
Thailand has traditionally reckoned years by the Buddhist Era system, based on the death of Buddha in 543 BC. AD2000 is the 5243rd year of the Buddhist era and is written BE 2543.
Japan uses an Era System that counts the reign years of each emperor. AD 2000 is the 12th year of the “Heisei” era, the reign of the Emperor Akihito, and in Japan government documents are dated “Heisei 12” during that year.
The Chinese traditionally use both an Era System and a Zodiac system, which combines the two in naming the year.
The Julian calendar is still used in Ethiopia: the first month is called Meskerem and falls in September.
There are a number of Hindu calendars (due to religious diversity again!) so that holidays are celebrated at different times of the year in different areas.
South American Maya and Inca calendar systems are among the most complex in the world, and by contrast the North American Indian tribes had none at all, and will therefore never be in the doghouse for forgetting the anniversary.
