Sep 7, 2011

Calendar Daze - Part 1


"Thirty Days hath September..."

 by Sharon Archer
 





'Thirty Days hath September
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one
Save February all alone,
Which has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine each leap year'

Handy old rhyme, isn’t it?  The only tricky part is February and leap years - right?

Wrong!

Did you know that in 1752, September only had 19 days?
 
 
To understand why, we need to go back to Rome…
 In 45 BC, Julius Caesar reformed the Roman Calendar giving us the foundation of the one we use today.  But his model was too long by eleven minutes per year.  Doesn’t sound much, does it? But these insignificant minutes accumulated over the centuries. 

 By 1582, the spring equinox no longer fell on the 25 of March but earlier on the eleventh of that month.  

Pope Gregory XIII issued a Papal Bull correcting this by decreeing the 5th of October, in the year 1582, to be the 15th.  This brought the equinox back to March 21st.

To stop the problem occurring again, he calculated the century years should not be leap years unless they were divisible by 400.  Thus 2000 was a leap year, as was 1600.  The years 1700, 1800 and 1900, although divisible by four, were not leap years.

Roman Catholic countries, for example, Spain, France and Italy, changed to the Gregorian Calendar in 1582.


In England, it was nearly another two hundred years passed before the modified calendar was introduced. 

Remember Henry VIII?  He solved his marital difficulties by breaking with the Papacy in the 1530’s and declaring himself the head of the Church.  Those elusive minutes kept accumulating until, in 1752, eleven days had to be dropped from the calendar to bring it into line with the Gregorian model. 

The correction was made in September of 1752, when the date jumped from the 2nd to the 14th.  Believing they’d been robbed, angry mobs of people rioted in the streets shouting “Give us back our eleven days!” 

I came across a tiny hint of this date anomaly when I was doing genealogy and couldn't resist researching it further. We take the calendar and our methods of measuring time for granted... but it hasn't always been straightforward!

So tell me, did you know this?  And if you did, how had you come across it?

I couldn't resist an excuse to give away a copy of The Man Behind The Badge!


PS: I raided one of Mr Gadget's other boxes for all these watches... okay I confess three of them are mine!  :)





33 comments:

  1. Sharon, It's snippets like that that truly light my fire! It's fascinating how people - men - throughout history chartered courses that led to how we view certain things today. My mind boggles at how anyone, even with computers, could figure out stuff like that. Oh, my kingdom for a math brain!

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  2. Nope, I had no idea. This is all very interesting.

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  3. Hi Sharon, that was an extremely interesting post. I didn't know any of the facts mentioned in it. Like most people i always took the way time is measured for granted.

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  4. I remembered some of it, but not about the dividing by 400. Very interesting.

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  5. Oh, Sharon, I am shuddering at the thought of losing 11 days. While I know in principle I wouldn't be losing them, I'm not sure if my editor would agree with me. :-)

    (Am off to ponder now, how all those folk in 1752 recalculated their various deadlines)

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  6. Sharon, like Marlena, I knew some of it, but not all the details. Fascinating!

    And some lucky person is going to win Tom and Kayla's story? Very cool. I loved that book. :)

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  7. Robyn, you're a woman after my own heart! As soon as I heard about the tricky calendar things in the 1700s I had to look further. This wasn't the only change around this time and I'm coming back next month to blog about that.

    I'm with you on the mathematics of all this too! Mind boggling and they were using pen and paper, none of helpful electronic wizardry we have today!

    Oooooo, thank you! I adore this cover!
    :)
    Sharon

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  8. Hey Jane, thanks for popping in to read my calendar post.
    :)
    Sharon

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  9. Thanks, Sonali! We do take these things for granted but then something comes along to make us question. I felt a bit like a detective with a red hot lead to follow!
    LOL
    Sharon

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  10. Marlena, I'm tickled you've learned something new. To actually conceive of the idea of how to solve the problem is fascinating and as Robyn said the mathematics must have been mind boggling.

    :)
    Sharon

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  11. Michelle, YES! Imagine having 11 days whipped "away" when you're trying to meet a deadline! I do wonder how it effected people. It must have been quite frightening for many to have the authorities come along and decree this was going to happen. And on a really important note... what if your birthday was on the missing days?
    :-p
    Sharon

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  12. Thank you for those lovely words about Tom and Kayla's story, Rachel! You helped me get these pair on to the page!

    Cool that you've added to your calendar knowledge!

    :)
    Sharon

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  13. Thanks Sharon for the history lesson. I knew about all the calendar sayings and adjustments. I didn't realize about all the missing days though. I imagine it could be quite frightening to lose 11 days. Quite an adjustment as well. I have trouble just adjusting to daylight saving time and that only involves an hour twice yearly.

    I loved Tom and Kayla's story. I was lucky enough to win a copy of the Best Love Stories of 2010 so I got to enjoy Liz and Jack's story as well.

    I think I could probably put together as many watches as you have. Only a few of them work at our place as I don't wear one anymore since my cell phone tells me the time. My husband only keeps batteries in his current favorite watch.

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  14. I read this at one time but was so confused my brain rejected it and it left my mind. My mind is still confused over it even after reading your blog.

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  15. Hey, Sharona, what a fun post! Hmm, to think I'd be 11 days younger if they'd stuck with the old ways. ;-) Actually I'm kinda laughing about the people rioting for their missing days. I remember when they wanted to bring in daylight saving in Queensland where I live, people were worried about the cows not being able to tell the time when it came to wandering in for milking. They were also worried about a couple of other man-type things that usually happen first thing in the morning happening on the bus. Oh, the complications of changing the time!

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  16. Have just had another thought - what if your birthday was in those missing days? The horror! :)

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  17. Oh, noes! And I have to say the idea of losing 11 days heading up to deadline gives me the willies.

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  18. Oh, my! This is doing my head in, Sharon! It's so fascinating, though. I remember those daylight saving arguments Anna mentioned. People were saying that about the cows 20-odd years ago and also only last year, which I find rather worrying!

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  19. Sharon, that's just too complicated!! Can't we just pretend the calender has been around since mankind LOL!!

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  20. I knew snippets from a variety of sources over the years, but did not know the whole story. Fascinating! Math really is representative, not absolute...

    That is a great cover photo!

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  21. I always learn things from your blog posts Ms. Archer !! Thanks. The boys will love it too.

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  22. Thank you, Kaelee! I'm thrilled you enjoyed the books!

    Hey, I know what you mean about getting the daylight saving time organised - and that's only an hour! LOL on your watch collection - they do accumulate, don't they!
    :)
    Sharon

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  23. Ellen, aren't we lucky they sorted this out a couple of centuries ago! But actually parts of Russia, some of the Eastern European countries and China didn't change until the early 1900... so I wonder how they went? In fact, I had a small peek at the Russia calendar information and it looks like they had quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing before they settle on the Gregorian calendar in 1940.

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  24. Anna, I remember the debates and concerns about daylight saving to! Confused cows and fading curtains! It was a big performance the first year. Now, it's not too bad - though I definitely prefer the end of it when I feel as though I can have a sleep in and still get up early!
    ;)
    Sharon

    YES! Losing 11 days leading up to a deadline is enough to make us all shudder!

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  25. LOL, Rachel! No pressies or cake if you were unlucky enough to have a birthday on, say, the 8th of September in the middle of the 18th century!

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  26. Vanessa... just to torture you a bit more... I wonder how they decided on 24 hours in a day... Whay wasn't it 36 slightly shorter time unites... or why wasn't it metric? Say 100 very short time units in a day...
    mmm mind boggling!
    ;)
    Sharon

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  27. argh! After my comment to Vanessa, Mel, I think that's a jolly good idea - let's pretend the calendar arrived with the dawn of mankind!
    LOL
    Sharon

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  28. Hey, Sylvia, I'm tickled you like the cover picture too!

    I like the idea of no absolutes - or absolute until otherwise proven!
    :)
    Sharon

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  29. Sharon

    How interestin i had no idea thank you for that I love all those watches my sister keeps heaps of them as well LOL.

    Good luck to the winner of your book it is a fantastic story

    Have Fun
    Helen

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  30. Helen, if only collecting all those watches meant more time! Instead it just means another box of gadgets! LOL

    Thanks you for your lovely words about Tom and Kayla's story!

    :)
    Sharon

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  31. A million apologies, everyone, I'm SUPER late posting the winner of The Man Behind The Badge!

    Anyway without further ado, it's SYLVIA! Sylvia, could you please contact me on
    sharon (at) sharon-archer (dot) com

    Thank you everyone for popping to chat about the calendar!
    :)
    Sharon

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