What's the date?

Cue (NZERS), Issue 22, 30 April 1945, Page 8

What's the date?

HAT’S the date? The answer to W the question may he strangely 'baffling in many parts of the world. In India seventeen different dates might be supplied, in China three; in Cairo Jews, Moslems, and Christians would give varying answers; a Yugoslav might provide two dates for the one day. It would all be most confusing, but there is a simple explanation.

Not all races or peoples of the earth use the same calendar, and in some countries a day may have a number of different dates. In India there arc seventeen varying calendars in Use. China’s inhabitants use at least three forms. Jews and Moslems in many countries observe only their own special versions, and a large, number of Yugoslavs employ one calendar in their business life and another in their homes. In 'earlier years hundreds of diverse calendars were used by the peoples of the world, but there has been a steady process of elimination during the past 400 years. Before long there may be a standardized calendar for the whole world.

: Calendars have developed from the indefinite time-reckoning systems of primitive man. In his experience certain natural happenings constantly recurred in the same order. The sun rose :: and (set, the thin new moon appeared and grew in unvarying period of time to a full ball of light. Leaves: sprouted and fell, trees blossomed and fruit ripened. By such concrete phenomena he was able to

indicate a certain time. There is the Homeric description of evening as ’’the tone when oxen are unyoked”. Time was counted by natural signs. Nine new moons appeared before the woman bore her child. A child who had seen ten harvests or ten snows was ten years old. ' The star Sirius is a conspicuous object in the Egyptian sky. Che ancient people of Egypt noted that, after periods of invisibility, Sirius reappeared regularly at a time which corresponded closely with the rise of the Nile on which the agricultural welfare of the country depended. They chose this for the first day of the year. Religious texts inscribed on the pyramids of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties show . that an Egyptian calendar was then already in existence. The Babylonians also had a calendar over 4,000 years ago, and from 2,000 B.C. onwards it was adopted by the Assyrians, used by the Jews on their return from exile an( employed even into the Christian erg. The Chinese native calendar since 163 B.C. dated the year from the accession of the reigning emperor, but Chinese history gives evidence of the use of a calendar 2,000 years before that. The calendar of the Maya Old Empire formed the basis of a number of quaint but remarkably accurate calendars used by several races of Mexico, in original version was in use at leaa,. 2,000 years ago. The rising and sc - ing of the ,sun was used to correct the M'ava Calendar, a method which wctrni

• vC the' time length of the tropical year. ' 'lt was from the Romans that the name calendar was derived. Their method of distributing time into periods to suit the purposes of - civil life was known as calends, and the civil calendar of all European countries has been borrowed from the Roman Republican Calendar. Days and years were based on the sun. The revolution of the earth and the alternation of light and darkness defined the day and the completion of the cycle of the seasons defined the year. Months were related to the moon, it having been perceived that the cycle of the moon is accomplished in 29j days. The working of the calends was in the hands of the pontifices who used to watch every month for the new moon. Owing to the clumsiness of the pontifices and still more to political manoeuvres, by which intercalation was made or omitted recklessly to affect the magistrate’s year of office, the calendar got into a state of hopeless confusion by the end of the republic,

and Julius Caesar ordered its reformation. The modified calendar which he introduced was based entirely on the sun and fixed the mean length of the year at 3651 days. It became known as the Julian Calendar. Actually the Julian year was too long, the error amounting to about three days in 400 years, and in the course of a few centuries the equinox moved slightly backward towards the beginning of the year.

Because of its importance in the determining of Easter the equinox has a special significance for the Christian -Church. According to a traditional regulation Easter Day must be celebrated. on the Sunday that comes next after the full moon that follows, or falls on, the March equinox. In the fifteenth century a learned astronomer of Naples devised a new calendar which restored the equinox to its former place in the year, and Pope Gregory XIII approved its adoption as the Church calendar. It has since been received in almost all Christian countries -under the name of the ’’Gregorian’’ or ’’New Style” Calendar. The introduction of the new calendar in Scotland in 1600 was one occasion when the Scots got in well ahead of the English. It was not until 150 years later that the English Parliament approved the adoption of .the Gregorian calendar. It was almost universal 'in Europe by 1800. Japan adopted it in 1873 and Republican China in 1912, though there, many of the people still cling to ancient types. Chiang Kai-shek’s Government

declines legal recognition of documents and contracts dated according to the old calendars. Russia accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1918, and emancipated Turkey in 1927. The. League of Nations appointed a Committee in 1923 to consider further reforms the calendar, but this committee' reported that no evidence had been discovered of a wide desire to alter' lit. There was, however, much secular support and certain sympathy from some religious authorities in favour of a fixed Easter. A Private Member’s Bill was passed by the British Parliament in 1928 which provided that, from a date to be fixed by Order-iin-Ccuncil, Easter day shall be the ; first Sunday following the second Saturday in April. No Order-in-Council has yet been made and probably none will .be, until there is a prospect of uniform action by other .countries and general support from

religious denominations. , Although the League of Nations was content to leave the Gregorian calendar alone, there was a growing weight of

opinion among commercial and scientific groups that improvements could and should be made, and the reformed calendar universally adopted. 'J The Indian Nationalist leader, Gandhi, who • has spent so much of his life counting the weeks between meals,, says that he is very much in . favour of a uniform calendar. ...

. An , American organisation . called the ’’World Calendar” Association is urging the merit of a calendar in which a particular date would fall each year

on the same day of the week... Thus an infant born on a Sunday would, have the birthday on a Sunday for the rest of its life —& rather monotonous prospect and a bit awkward for celebration under New Zealand licensing laws. The World Calendar divides the year into equal quarters of 13 weeks, every year and every quarter of the year commencing on a Sunday. The first month of a quarter has 31 days and the two following months 30 days each. There are 26 week days in each month and five Sundays in the first month of a quarter and four Sundays in the other months. This accounts for 364 days, and there is good news for the weary worker in the proposal for the 365th day. It is set down as a fixed holiday following Saturday, December 30, and is called December W. The problem of Leap Year is solved in a similar,way, a holiday on the day following Saturday June 30, being named June W. By such, an attractive method the stability of the calendar is maintained. If the League of Nations had put forward some bright ideas like that they might not have found interest lacking, .

The ;ZWorld. Calendar” would greatly simplify the planning of schedules. Bank/ holidays and national holidays would correspond • with week days from one year to the next. There would be no need to seek an old calendar to find but on what day Christmas fell last year, or hunt up a .future calendar to see what day it would be. on next year. Christmas clay would always be on a Monday. . \ z