User:LearningLiza

The story of our Calendar
In 46 B.C., the Roman calendar was centered on the moon. With the new moon, there was a new month, or “moonth”. Sometimes, the sky would be covered in clouds, or the watchmen would not see the new moon, and it could happen that Caesar himself would not know when a new month had started. The Roman calendar was a huge mess. Caesar went to Egypt and saw what a good calendar they had. The Egyptians had been using that calendar for over 4,000 years. The first recorded date in history was from the Egyptian calendar, the year 4241 B.C. Caesar wanted a calendar like this for the Romans. He asked Sosigenes, a great Egyptian astronomer, to make one for them. When he arrived, Sosigenes found that the year 46 B.C. had come out around 90 days short, so the first thing he and Caesar did, was to tack on 3 extra months. They figured out new months, discarding the moon entirely. This new calendar had 365 days, like the Egyptian one. “We have discovered” Sosigenes said, “that it takes 365 and ¼ days for the sun to travel around the earth. Because of that, we must add one extra day every 4 years.” At that time, people still thought that the sun went around the earth, not the way it truly is. Caesar was determined to have the most up to date and scientific calendar he could, so he added that day, which is now February 29th. That calendar is very similar to the one we use now. The calendar that we use is the Gregorian calendar, which is a refinement of the

Julian calendar, made by the Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It was different from the Julian Calendar because it had a different way of choosing leap years. Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100; the centurial years that are exactly divisible by 400 are still leap years. For example, the year 1900 is not a leap year; the year 2000 is a leap year. I am glad that so many people wanted to have a good calendar. We now get to enjoy the benefits. --Eliza 00:17, 19 January 2010 (UTC)