The Gregorian Calendar, which is what we use today, has been around for the last 434 years.
Here are a few things to know about the Gregorian Calendar.
- The calendar was made to fix issues with the Julian Calendar.
- It introduced the concept of having a leap year every three out of four century years.
- The calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582 and was named after him.
- It changed the length of a year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days, which cut 10 minutes 48 seconds each year.
- The calendar was designed to keep Easter celebrations close to the same time they were introduced by the early church.
- The Gregorian Calendar is still off by 26 seconds each year when compared to a solar calendar.
- This has resulted in hours of extra time being added and it will be a full day off in 4909.
- Several European countries celebrated the New Year at different times before the new calendar system was introduced.
- Protestant countries fought against the calendar change, with Germany not accepting it until 1700 and England waiting until 1752 to make the switch.
- There were reports of riots in 1752 when England made the change with some citizens demanding they get their 11 days back from the government.
- Benjamin Franklin was pleased with the change and said it was great to go to sleep on Sept. 2 and not wake up until Sept. 14.
- Today’s Google Doodle is celebrating the anniversary of the Gregorian Calendar.
You can follow these links to learn more about the Gregorian Calendar.
