Gregorian Calender

Share

Kishore Kumar Purohit 08th Oct 2020

*Gregory Conquers Julius Caesar*

Julius Caesar famously came, saw and conquered and was a brilliant Roman general. But he wasn’t very good at sums. And the _calendar that he devised in 46 BC – named the Julian calendar in his honour – was flawed, even though it was to last for 1,600 years._

The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most of the world. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it on 4 October 1582.

The calendar was developed as a correction to the Julian calendar, shortening the average year by 0.0075 days to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes. To deal with the 10 days' difference (between calendar and reality) that this drift had already reached, the date was advanced so that 4 October 1582 was followed by 15 October 1582. There was no discontinuity in the cycle of weekdays or of the Anno Domini calendar era.

The problem was Caesar had calculated that a year lasted for 365 days and six hours. But this did not properly reflect the actual time it takes the Earth to circle once around the Sun, known as a tropical year. 

In fact it is only 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds. Not much difference, but enough, 1,600 years later, to have put the world astray by a whole week.

So it was on 4 October 1582 that Ugo Buoncompagni, an Italian better known as Pope Gregory XIII, introduced a new calendar – the Gregorian calendar – which would iron out the Julian discrepancies, eventually become widely accepted and is the calendar in use today across much of the world.

Gregory needed to lose a few days so under his new system October 4, 1582 was followed the next day by 15 October. And he decreed that New Year’s Day should be moved from 1 April to 1 January.

Then there was the question of leap years – those containing 366 days and necessary to keep the calendar in alignment with the Earth’s revolutions around the Sun. Gregory calculated that if we didn’t add a leap day on February 29 nearly every four years, we would lose almost six hours off the calendar every year. After only 100 years it would be astray by 24 days!

But he also modified Caesar’s concept of a leap year precisely every four years, which is too many. The Gregorian calendar uses a much more accurate method for calculating leap years and stipulates that century years, even though divisible by four, are not leap years. The exceptions are those that can be divided by 400. Thus, 2000 was a leap year, but 1900 was not. 

The Gregorian calendar was to become accepted worldwide, even though some countries stuck out for Julian. The UK did not accept Gregory until 1752, whereas Greece held out until 1923. The last convert was Turkey, which finally accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1927.


Like (0)

Comments

Post

Latest Posts

यस्मिन् जीवति जीवन्ति बहव: स तु जीवति | काकोऽपि किं न कुरूते चञ्च्वा स्वोदरपूरणम् || If the 'living' of a person results in 'living' of many other persons, only then consider that person to have really 'lived'. Look even the crow fill it's own stomach by it's beak!! (There is nothing great in working for our own survival) I am not finding any proper adjective to describe how good this suBAshit is! The suBAshitkAr has hit at very basic question. What are all the humans doing ultimately? Working to feed themselves (and their family). So even a bird like crow does this! Infact there need not be any more explanation to tell what this suBAshit implies! Just the suBAshit is sufficient!! *जिसके जीने से कई लोग जीते हैं, वह जीया कहलाता है, अन्यथा क्या कौआ भी चोंच से अपना पेट नहीं भरता* ? *अर्थात- व्यक्ति का जीवन तभी सार्थक है जब उसके जीवन से अन्य लोगों को भी अपने जीवन का आधार मिल सके। अन्यथा तो कौवा भी भी अपना उदर पोषण करके जीवन पूर्ण कर ही लेता है।* हरि ॐ,प्रणाम, जय सीताराम।

न भारतीयो नववत्सरोSयं तथापि सर्वस्य शिवप्रद: स्यात् । यतो धरित्री निखिलैव माता तत: कुटुम्बायितमेव विश्वम् ।। *यद्यपि यह नव वर्ष भारतीय नहीं है। तथापि सबके लिए कल्याणप्रद हो ; क्योंकि सम्पूर्ण धरा माता ही है।*- ”माता भूमि: पुत्रोSहं पृथिव्या:” *अत एव पृथ्वी के पुत्र होने के कारण समग्र विश्व ही कुटुम्बस्वरूप है।* पाश्चातनववर्षस्यहार्दिकाःशुभाशयाः समेषां कृते ।। ------------------------------------- स्वत्यस्तु ते कुशल्मस्तु चिरयुरस्तु॥ विद्या विवेक कृति कौशल सिद्धिरस्तु ॥ ऐश्वर्यमस्तु बलमस्तु राष्ट्रभक्ति सदास्तु॥ वन्शः सदैव भवता हि सुदिप्तोस्तु ॥ *आप सभी सदैव आनंद और, कुशल से रहे तथा दीर्घ आयु प्राप्त करें*... *विद्या, विवेक तथा कार्यकुशलता में सिद्धि प्राप्त करें,* ऐश्वर्य व बल को प्राप्त करें तथा राष्ट्र भक्ति भी सदा बनी रहे, आपका वंश सदैव तेजस्वी बना रहे.. *अंग्रेजी नव् वर्ष आगमन की पर हार्दिक बधाई एवं शुभकामनाएं* ज्योतिषाचार्य बृजेश कुमार शास्त्री

आलस्यं हि मनुष्याणां शरीरस्थो महान् रिपुः | नास्त्युद्यमसमो बन्धुः कृत्वा यं नावसीदति || Laziness is verily the great enemy residing in our body. There is no friend like hard work, doing which one doesn’t decline. *मनुष्यों के शरीर में रहने वाला आलस्य ही ( उनका ) सबसे बड़ा शत्रु होता है | परिश्रम जैसा दूसरा (हमारा )कोई अन्य मित्र नहीं होता क्योंकि परिश्रम करने वाला कभी दुखी नहीं होता |* हरि ॐ,प्रणाम, जय सीताआलस्यं हि मनुष्याणां शरीरस्थो महान् रिपुः | नास्त्युद्यमसमो बन्धुः कृत्वा यं नावसीदति || Laziness is verily the great enemy residing in our body. There is no friend like hard work, doing which one doesn’t decline. *मनुष्यों के शरीर में रहने वाला आलस्य ही ( उनका ) सबसे बड़ा शत्रु होता है | परिश्रम जैसा दूसरा (हमारा )कोई अन्य मित्र नहीं होता क्योंकि परिश्रम करने वाला कभी दुखी नहीं होता |* हरि ॐ,प्रणाम, जय सीताराम।राम।

Top