History of the Calendar WHERE ARE WE NOW? WHAT YEAR IS IT REALLY? OUR WESTERN CALENDAR The calendar as we know it has evolved from a Roman calendar established by Romulus, consisting of a year of 304 days divided into 10 months, commencing with March. modified by Numa, added two extra months, January and February, making a year consist of 12 months of 30 and 29 days alternately plus one extra day and thus a year of 355 days. required an Intercalary month of 22 or 23 days in alternate years. In the year 46 B.C. Julius Caesar asked for the help of the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes, had found that the calendar had fallen into some confusion. led to the adoption of the Julian calendar in 45 B.C. 46 B.C. was made to consist of 445 days to adjust for earlier faults known as the "Year of Confusion". In the Christian system, years are distinguished by numbers before or after the Incarnation denoted by the letters B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini). The starting point is the Jewish calendar year 3761 A.M. (Anno Mundi) and the 754th year from the foundation of Rome. said to have been introduced into England by St. Augustine about 596 A.D. not in general use until ordered by the bishops at council of Chelsea 816 A.D. The Julian calendar all centennial years were leap years (ie the years A.D. 1200, 1300, 1400 etc.) end of the 16th century difference of 10 days between the Tropical and calendar years. corrected in 1582 The Gregorian calendar 1582 Pope Gregory ordained that October 4th would be followed by October 15th, 10 day correction, only every fourth centennial year should be a Leap Year. is the one we now use. It was adopted by Italy, France and Portugal in 1582 other countries made the correction at various dates up to as recently as 1923. in England and her dominions the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar took place in 1752, the correction was made by the omission of eleven days; Wednesday, September 2nd being followed by Thursday, September 14th. The Julian VS Gregorian calendars sometimes referred to as the Old Style and New Style calendars. these terms originally applied to the date of the beginning of the year (New Year's Day). In the Old Style this was March 25th changed to January 1st (New Style) in England in 1752 when changing from the Julian to Gregorian calendar. New year's day was changed to January 1st in Scotland in 1600. The Equinoctial or Tropical Year the time that the Earth takes to revolve around the Sun from one Spring Equinox to another approximately 365.24219 mean solar days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and just over 45 seconds. The Equinox is the point where the Sun crosses the Equator making day and night equal. The Calendar Year 365 days except if the year number is divisible by four evenly, this being a Leap year of 366 days. The last year of a century is not a leap year unless its number is evenly divisible by 400. For example, 1800 and 1900 were not Leap Years, while 2000 is a Leap Year. THE JEWISH CALENDAR The Jewish calendar is based on three astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a month); and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year). These three phenomena are independent of each other On average, the moon revolves around the Earth in about 29½ days. The Earth revolves around the sun in about 365¼ days, that is, about 12.4 lunar months. The Gregorian calendar used by most of the world has abandoned any correlation between the moon cycles and the month, arbitrarily sets the length of months to 28, 30 or 31 days. The Jewish calendar coordinates all three of these astronomical phenomena. Months are either 29 or 30 days, corresponding to the 29½-day lunar cycle. Years are either 12 or 13 months, corresponding to the 12.4 month solar cycle. The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the dark of the moon. The problem with strictly lunar calendars is that there are approximately 12.4 lunar months in every solar year, so a 12-month lunar calendar is about 11 days shorter than a solar year and a 13-month lunar is about 19 longer than a solar year. To compensate for this drift, the Jewish calendar uses a 12-month lunar calendar with an extra month is occasionally added. A year with 13 months is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me'uberet (pronounced shah-NAH meh-oo-BEH-reht) literally: a pregnant year. The additional month is known as Adar I, inserted before the regular month of Adar (known in such years as Adar II). Adar II is the "real" Adar, the one in which Purim is celebrated, added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle. current cycle began in Jewish year 5758 (the year that began October 2, 1997 NUMBERING OF YEARS The year number on the Jewish calendar represents the number of years since creation, calculated by adding up the ages of people in the Bible back to the time of creation. Suggests that the universe has existed for only 5700 years as we understand years. Jews do not use "A.D." and "B.C." as per the Gregorian calendar. Instead, they use C.E. (Common or Christian Era) and B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) MONTHS OF THE JEWISH YEAR The "first month" of the Jewish calendar is the month of Nissan, in the spring, when Passover occurs. Jewish New Year is in Tishri, the seventh month, when the year number is increased. The names of the months adopted during the time of Ezra, after the return from the Babylonian exile. are actually Babylonian month names most of the Bible refers to months by number, not by name. Note that the number of days between Nissan and Tishri is always the same. the time from the first major festival (Passover in Nissan) to the last major festival (Sukkot in Tishri) is always the same. Nissan 1 30 days March-April Iyar 2 29 days April-May Sivan 3 30 days May-June Tammuz 4 29 days June-July Av 5 30 days July-August Elul 6 29 days August-September Tishri 7 30 days September-October 29 or 30 Cheshvan 8 October-November days 30 or 29 Kislev 9 November-December days Tevet 10 29 days December-January Shevat 11 30 days January-February Adar I (leap years only) 12 30 days February-March Adar 12 (called Adar Beit in (13 in leap 29 days February-March leap years) years) Days of the Jewish Week Shabbat, the name of the seventh day of the week, The days of the week are simply known as first day, second day, third day, etc. Tracey R Rich .