Calendar history

The city of Ephesus was famous for its magnificent temple, built in honor of the goddess Artemis, patroness of animals and hunting. This temple was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. In 356 BC, the church burned down, and not by accident: it was set on fire by a shepherd named Herostratus. At the trial, he explained that he had decided on this act, wanting to become famous by any means and thereby immortalize his name. Herostrat was executed, and this name was forbidden to residents of the city. The court wanted to erase the memory of the arsonist. But the historian Theopomp violated the ban, and from him the succeeding generations learned about the crime. Thus, Herostrat achieved his - he immortalized his name, only at what price? !There was even a winged expression "the glory of Herostratus", denoting the blackest, most shameful acts of people, driven by the desire to become famous at all costs. Unfortunately, Herostratus is not the only ambitious person who has been "remembered" by history.

. .. Let's open the calendar. Everything is customary: in one month 31 days, in others - 30, the shortest month - February. It is 28 or 29 days old. Why? It turns out that the days of February are stolen, and the matter is again in ambition!

The Romans, from whom we borrowed the chronology, in ancient times used a calendar that divided the year for 10 months and had 304 days.

The year began in March, dedicated to Mars - the god of war. December was the tenth( final) month. The time span between December and the beginning of spring was called "without months".This year was very uncomfortable - it lagged behind the natural course of time.

In the 7th century BC, the "monthless" gap was decided to divide by 2 months: the eleventh was January( named after the patron of the entrances, exits and doors of the god Janus, who had the gift to clearly see everything in the past and the future), the last month was February( in Februaryhonor of the god of the dead Februaarius).It took him only 28 days, besides, the last, the 28th day was dedicated to the "dead souls".So February was a doubly unlucky month.

And all the same, the Roman calendar lagged behind the sunny calendar for more than 10 days, and with every year the calendar numbers were less consistent with nature. I had to insert every thirteen months the thirteenth month - marcedonia( which means "fading").It lasted 22-23 days. Unbelievable confusion began. The day of Bacchus, the god of wine and fun, was celebrated when the grapes were still not ripe and there was no wine, and the autumn harvest festival sometimes happened in the winter.

Emperor Julius Caesar decided to restore order. In 46 BC he introduced a new calendar, which was later called Julian. The emperor invented it not himself, but guided by the advice of the Egyptian astronomer Sozigen. I must say that the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt began to build their lives in accordance with the phases of the sun already 6 thousand years ago. Priests knew the basics of astronomy, calculated the timing of the Nile floods. The Egyptian year was 365 days - for such a period our planet turns around the Sun( more precisely - 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds).There was no leap year. The new year began on July 19, when the brightest star Sirius appeared at the rising of the sun in the east.

The year according to the calendar introduced by Caesar contained, like the Egyptian, 365 days. Each fourth year became a "year-and-day" - had 366 days. The number of "full" months( 31 days) remained the same, and for each "empty"( 29 days) and to February with its 28 days added one day. Again February was unlucky - it had 30 days every four years, and in ordinary - 29.

After the death of Julius Caesar, in his honor one of the months was called July. The successor of Caesar was Octavian. For his emperor's services, he received from the nobility the title of Augustus, that is, the Sacred. This event was immortalized - the month August appeared. But in August, there were 30 days, and in July - 31. How could the ambitious endure that in his month there were fewer days than his predecessor? And then in the last year of the month - February, which only had 29 days, one day was taken and given to August.

It seemed, now with confusion it is finished. But in Caesar's calendar, a seemingly insignificant mistake was made: the length of the calendar year was 11 minutes longer than the astronomical one. At first nobody noticed it, but in 2 thousand years, May would have shifted to April, and September - to August.

Arabic calendar

The Roman calendar. III century.n.e.

Disputes about how to fix things, started a long time and were very long. Only in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII approved a new calendar, named in his honor the Gregorian. In fairness, I must say that Dad did not invent any calendar. Its author was an Italian physician and astronomer Lilio. The ambitious pope took responsibility, inscribed the word "approve" - ​​and immortalized his name. This calendar corrected the errors of the Julian, but did not coincide with it for 10 days. In the future, this difference was to increase: in the 18th century - up to 11 days, in the XIX - up to 12, in the XX and XXI - up to 13, and in the XXII - up to 14 days, etc.

The Gregorian calendar was immediately introduced in France, Italy, Portugal.

In ancient Russia, the chronology was conducted from the "creation of the world", and not from the "birth of Christ", as in the Gregorian. At first the year began in March, and from the end of the 15th century it began in September. Peter I decreed on December 15, 1699, a new beginning of the year: after December 31, 7208, "from the creation of the world" came January 1, 1700: "For a good start, it was ordered in Moscow to decorate all the houses with green branches( a Christmas tree) and congratulate each other withNew Year and the New Century( Centenary Century).Never a new century from the old did not differ so much, "AS Pushkin wrote in The History of Peter. But the adopted calendar was Julian.

Mexican calendar.

The decision to switch to the Gregorian calendar was made on January 26, 1918.The new calendar was introduced from February 1( old style) in 1918.This calendar is still used in our country and in many other countries.

Calendar is the most ancient invention of man. On the rocks of Cape Besov Nos that is on the eastern shore of Onega Lake, for a long time the attention of tourists was attracted by mysterious lines, strokes and ovals, scratched by stone cutters of primitive people. These litters turned out to be. .. a calendar. Stone Age stargazers took, of course, many years of observations to create such a calendar. Similar monuments of the history of civilization are found in many regions of the globe.

But, of course, they did not limit the creative thought of inventors, especially since people did not always consider time in the same way, in some places the movement of the Sun was taken into account, in others - the phases of the moon, in the third - the arrangement of stars. Thanks to this, different calendars, called Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, appeared. Yes, and they had many varieties. India is very interesting in this respect. Until 1957, several official and about 300 local calendars operated in the country!

Astronomer.

In the calendars of the Japanese for a long time the chronology was associated with the "imperial epochs" - the years of the reign of this or that emperor. And about 250 of these epochs have been collected. And the Japanese celebrate their birthday in a special way: in the New Year( regardless of the day when a person appears).So the child born on December 30, January 1 turns one year old. In the principality of Bhutan, court astrologers at the end of each year compose a horoscope for the next. When they see that for such or such a month or day an unfavorable combination of stars falls, this "bad" day or month from the calendar is thrown out and replaced by others. Therefore, it happens that there are in the year two August and not one September.

Just over a hundred years ago calendars-aprons with embroidery were running in our northern villages. Signs marked various agricultural cycles: sowing, harvesting, pasture pasture, pasture, haymaking, hunting, etc. It was a month, or an agricultural folk calendar closely associated with working life. Take only May. Here is the day of Irina-nursery, when planted seedlings in the beds, and Nikola Vyshny - on this day, planted potatoes and sowed spring crops, and the day of Sidor-borage, and the day of Olena-flaxseed, and Fedosya-buckwheat.

Wall calendars-monthlyaslovy since 1727 produced the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. By the way, modern calendars created by typographical means have a distant ancestor associated with the name of the famous printer Ivan Fedorov. Prince Ostrogsky decided to have a press in the family castle. He summoned Ivan Fedorov to Ostrog. Here on May 5, 1581, Fedorov published a modest sheet on which he published poems dedicated to each month. The most important dates were also marked.

The first detachable calendars began to be printed at the end of the last century by the famous publisher I. Sytin. Brightly designed, they enjoyed great popularity among the people. The consultant for the Sotyn calendar was JT.N. Tolstoy. Sytin himself wrote about his idea: "I did not take up the publication of the calendar at once and prepared for this business for five years. .. I looked at the calendar as a universal reference book, as a home encyclopedia for all occasions."

Now the circulation of all kinds of calendars is 40-50 million copies. Of these, a good third falls on the share of the most traditional, called the people's numerals, - a detachable wall calendar. In its preparation, an average of 2 thousand people - famous public figures, representatives of science, art, journalists, workers. Therefore, he becomes an interesting and useful companion for a whole year.