The Calendar. It took several thousand years to establish a satisfactory calendar. Even in this century not all the countries in Europe kept the same calendar. Why was it so difficult? Do we really need an accurate means of recording civil time?

Many diverse calendars have been developed over the millennia to assist people in organising their lives. According to a recent approximation, there are roughly forty calendars used in the world today, particularly for determining religious dates. Most modern countries use the Gregorian calendar for their official activities.

The main calendars which are still in use are the Chinese calendar, which is based on exact astronomical observations of the longitude of the sun and the phases of the moon. This means that main beliefs of modern science have had an influence on the Chinese calendar. “The Christian/ Gregorian calendar which is based on the motion of the earth around the sun, while the months have no relationship with the motion of the moon.” Thirdly, the  is based on the motion of the moon, while the year has no connection with the motion of the earth around the sun. The Indian calendar is very similar to the Gregorian, but has a few additional more complicated rules. “The Jewish calendar is a combined solar/lunar calendar, in that it strives to have its years coincide with the tropical year and its months coincide with the synodic months.” This is a complicated goal, and the rules for the Jewish calendar are correspondingly fascinating. The Ethiopian calendar is based on the Coptic calendar, although it differs with regard to the saint's days and the time of observing them. The Persian calendar is a solar calendar with a starting point that matches that of the Islamic calendar. Its origin can be traced back to the 11th century when a group of astronomers (including the well-known poet Omar Khayyam) created what is known as the Jalaali calendar. However, a number of changes have been made to the calendar since then. There are various others still in use, but as there are forty of them, it is impossible to mention them all in detail, There are also several calendars which have died out, including the Ancient, French, Mayan and Roman.

The existing dominating calendar is not without imperfections, and restructuring is still being proposed. Astronomically, it really calls for no development, but the seven-day week and the different lengths of months are substandard to some. Evidently, if the calendar could have all festivals and all rest days fixed on the same dates every year, as in the original Julian calendar, this arrangement would be more suitable, and two general schemes have been put forward-the International Fixed Calendar and the World Calendar.

The International Fixed Calendar is essentially a perpetual Gregorian calendar, in which the year is divided into 13 months, each of 28 days, with an additional day at the end. The names we use for all the months are retained, but a new month called Sol is intercalated between June and July. The additional day follows December 28 and carries no name of month date or weekday name, while the same would be true of the day intercalated in a leap year after June 28. In this calendar, every month begins on a Sunday and ends on a Saturday.

It is claimed that the proposed International Fixed Calendar does not conveniently divide into quarters for business reckoning; and the World Calendar is designed to remedy this deficiency, being divided into four quarters of 91 days each, with an additional day at the end of the year. In each quarter, the first month is of 31 days and the second and third of 30 days each. The extra day comes after December 30 and bears no month or weekday designation, nor does the intercalated leap year day that follows June 30. In the World Calendar January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1 are all Sundays. Critics point out that each month extends over part of five weeks, and each month within a given quarter begins on a different day. Nevertheless, both these proposed reforms seem to be improvements over the present system that contains so many variables.

Overall, we can say that it is difficult to establish the same calendar for everyone as there are many different religions which have many different festivals which fall on certain days. Calendars are normally based on astronomical events, and the two most important astronomical objects are the sun and the moon. Their cycles are very important in the construction and understanding of calendars. In some religions, astronomy is less important than others, and many may not be willing to base much on the rotation of the earth around the sun etc. However, is seems that due to the domination of the western world since the 14th century, there is an overall idea of the Gregorian of Christian calendar being the most prevalent.

Before the use of standard time, there was much confusion about time. Some places used solar time (or true local time) as indicated on a sun dial; other places used mean time, as indicated by their longitude. As “places only 1° apart in distance, are 4 minutes apart in mean time”, it is easy enough to imagine the confusion that resulted when the railroads started making history the latter half of the 19th century. As communications throughout the world grew, more difficulty emerged concerning the differences and accuracy of time. Without this method of creating order relations between countries would be very difficult as no parties would be sure when they were meant to meet/discuss etc. We have to use standard time rather than civil time because otherwise, timings would be very complicated. “The earth is divided into 24 time zones, each of which is about 15° of longitude wide and corresponds to one hour of time. Within a zone all civil clocks are set to the same local .” Standard time was largely the creation of a man called Sir Sandford Fleming who was a railway engineer, and realised the importance of establishing set times in areas far apart from each other. Nowadays, another reason why the Gregorian calendar has become so widely used is that the western world became developed first and therefore had more power and greater influence. I think that it is very important to have a worldwide use of one set calendar (although it is fine to have less dominant calendars within each country or each religion to keep the culture alive). The idea of a set calendar and time structures and organises people’s life all around the world and even contributes to keeping the peace as it makes international relations much easier.

WORD COUNT: 1,385