Ten Days That Vanished: The Switch to the Gregorian Calendar (2024)
When it comes to calendars, small errors can add up over time. The Julian calendar—the prevalent calendar in the Christian world for the first millennium CE and part of the second millennium—was an improvement over the Roman republican calendar that it replaced, but it was 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the tropical year (the time it takes the Sun to return to the same position, as seen from Earth). The result was that the calendar drifted about one day for every 314 years.
One of the most pressing problems caused by the error was the increasing difficulty of calculating the date of Easter, which the Council of Nicaea in 325 had decreed should fall on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox, which at the time fell on March 21. The growing discrepancy between the date set by the council and the actual vernal equinox was noted in the 8th century CE, if not earlier, and a number of proposals for reform were brought before popes in the Middle Ages. But no action was taken, and the Julian calendar, flawed as it was, remained the official calendar of the Christian church.
In its session of 1562–63, the Council of Trent passed a decree calling for the pope to fix the problem by implementing a reformed calendar. But it took another two decades to find a suitable fix and put it into place. After years of consultation and research, Pope Gregory XIII signed a papal bull in February 1582 promulgating the reformed calendar that came to be known as the Gregorian calendar. The reforms were based on the suggestions of the Italian scientist Luigi Lilio, with some modifications by the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius.
The most surreal part of implementing the new calendar came in October 1582, when 10 days were dropped from the calendar to bring the vernal equinox from March 11 back to March 21. The church had chosen October to avoid skipping any major Christian festivals. So, in countries that adopted the new calendar, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4, 1582, was directly followed by October 15. France made the transition separately in December.
Something as complex as implementing a new calendar couldn’t go off without some complications, though.The Protestant and Orthodox countries didn’t want to take direction from the pope, so they refused to adopt the new calendar. The result was that Catholic Europe—Austria, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, and the Catholic states of Germany—suddenly jumped ahead of the rest of the continent by 10 days, and traveling across a border often meant traveling forward or backward on the calendar.
Eventually, non-Catholic countries did begin to adopt the Gregorian calendar. The Protestant regions of Germany and the Netherlands switched in the 17th century. Great Britain and the territories of the British Empire followed suit in 1752, spreading the Gregorian calendar around the globe.
The most surreal part of implementing the new calendar came in October 1582, when 10 days were dropped from the calendar to bring the vernal equinox from March 11 back to March 21. The church had chosen October to avoid skipping any major Christian festivals.
He explained, “By 1582, the Julian calendar, with a Leap Day every four years, had accumulated TEN extra days relative to Earth's orbit. So Pope Gregory jump-started his new and exquisitely accurate calendar by cancelling 10 days that year, in which October 4 was followed by October 15.”
'Give us our eleven days! ' The English calendar riots of 1752. The eleven days referred to here are the 'lost' 11 days of September 1752, skipped when Britain changed over from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, bringing us into line with most of Europe.
The papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 decreed that 10 days be skipped when switching to the Gregorian calendar. However, only five countries adopted the new calendar system that year—namely, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and most of France.
By that time, the discrepancy between a solar year and the Julian Calendar had grown by an additional day, so that the calendar used in England and its colonies was 11 days out-of-sync with the Gregorian Calendar in use in most other parts of Europe.
The Gregorian Calendar was then introduced on October 4th 1582 and, to realign it to the Julian Calendar, it was necessary to eliminate ten days by passing directly to October 15. And therefore from 5 to 14 October no one was born, no one died. Nothing happened …
The most surreal part of implementing the new calendar came in October 1582, when 10 days were dropped from the calendar to bring the vernal equinox from March 11 back to March 21.
The League of Nations eliminated [the 13-month calendar] when in 1937 the Council submitted only The World Calendar to the various nations for their opinion.
No, a month has never had 32 days in the common calendar systems used today. The widely accepted calendar systems, such as the Gregorian calendar, follow a pattern where the months have varying lengths, with the maximum number of days being 31.
The Julian calendar is the one that was introduced in the year 46 BC by Julius Caesar to all of the Roman Empire, and it is the calendar that was used during the life of Jesus Christ and at the time of the early Church.
The Persian calendar has been called “one of the world's most accurate calendar systems.” Like the Islamic calendar, it dates back to Muhammad's Hegira in 622 CE, but it is otherwise quite different. It's a solar calendar, rather than a lunar one, with the year beginning at midnight of the vernal equinox in Iran.
Thus, in countries that adopted the reform, Thursday, October 4, 1582, was directly followed by Friday, October 15, 1582. This adjustment effectively “erased” 10 days from history, a move that was necessary to reset the vernal equinox to March 21, the date it had been during the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
The Gregorian calendar differs from the solar year by 26 seconds per year. Despite Lilius' ingenious method for syncing the calendar with the seasons, his system is still off by 26 seconds. As a result, in the years since Gregory introduced his calendar in 1582, a discrepancy of several hours has arisen.
The early Roman calendar designated 1 March as the first day of the year. The calendar had just 10 months, beginning with March. That the new year once began with the month of March is still reflected in some of the names of the months.
The 13-month calendar was endorsed because of its seeming simplicity and the much-desired stability. The public, however, did not take kindly to it because the changes were too drastic. A few of the changes follow: The 13-month calendar was not easily divisible.
Twelve months are named and ordered the same as those of the Gregorian calendar, except that the extra month is inserted between June and July, and called Sol.
Introduction: My name is Tyson Zemlak, I am a excited, light, sparkling, super, open, fair, magnificent person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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