Hours, days, months, years - a countdown invented by a person, a measure of the existence of everything in the universe. Since ancient times, people have divided their time into convenient segments to organize their activities. The calendar is the rhythm to which the life of all mankind is subject.
The ability to count days and months is perhaps one of the first necessary knowledge that every child receives. Any adult understands the concept of a calendar, makes plans, appointing important events for certain days of the year. But not everyone knows the etymology of the word "calendar" and the origins of this, such an imperceptible, but extremely useful and necessary phenomenon in our civilization.
Chronology in the history of different peoples
The most ancient calendar, according to scientists, appeared as early as 5000 BC, in the culture of nomadic pastoralists of ancient Egypt. They tried to plan their lives in accordance with the floods of the Nile, which overflowed the banks at the same time of the year, and Sirius appeared in the sky at the same time.
This was the starting point for the Egyptians, starting from which, they quite accurately calculated the periods of rains and droughts, carefully marking the seasons on a kind of "calendar circle", which allowed them to "settle" and acquire a kind of agriculture.
But even before the Egyptians, many ancient peoples tried to move, hunt and have children in certain seasons, subordinating their lives to the change of day and night, cold and warm, to the movement of the Sun or Moon. The Sumerians of Mesopotamia, for example, were guided by the lunar calendar, in which each month consisted of 29 and a half days, and Ancient Russia used in chronology not only the lunar, but also the solar cycle of movement, taking into account the change of four seasons.
And it was not entirely easy - every 19 years it was necessary to include an additional seven months in the year! Moreover, the Russians already had a week - a week of 7 days. After the Baptism of Rus in 988, the priests tried to introduce a Byzantine calendar with a countdown from the "creation of Adam", but the stubborn Russians did not completely abandon the usual countdown, and the church had to make significant changes to its calendar. For example, Byzantium celebrated the New Year on September 1, while in Russia it was celebrated on March 1 for a long time.
And only when Ivan III, the Great, ascended the throne, the first of September began to be considered from the beginning of the year in 1492. And in 1700, according to the decree of Peter I, the Julian calendar was introduced in Russia, more accurate than the Byzantine one. At the same time, for the first time, calendars began to be issued in the form of magazines, which were called month words, filled with a variety of historical information, legal advice, news and culinary recipes.
Julius Caesar's calendar in Russia successfully existed until the proletarian revolution of the early 20th century, after which the modern, Gregorian chronology was introduced in the young Russian Republic.
One of the most famous ancient calendars on earth is the Shang Dynasty Chinese calendar dating from the 16th century BC. Moreover, it also took into account the movement of both the Sun and the Moon. The first was used exclusively for agriculture, and the second - for other needs. Modern China, of course, uses the generally accepted Gregorian calendar, but does not forget its history - all traditional important days, religious and folk holidays, events of ancient history are celebrated in accordance with the lunar calendar, which counts years and centuries as in the old days.
By the way, lovers of Chinese symbolism and astrology should know that the Chinese New Year is also called the Spring Festival and is traditionally celebrated on the second new moon, counting from the winter solstice, that is, between January 21 and February 21.
It is worth mentioning another calendar that caused a real commotion in 2012. This is the Mayan chronology, in which they counted the age of the world and the timing of the change in civilization, breaking each year into a sequence of cycles convenient for their religious rites.
The Mayan calendar, more precisely, its next cycle, ends precisely in 2012 (and this is only one of the hypotheses about the correspondence of dates in the Mayan chronology with the modern concept of the calendar), and populists, setting out information about the beliefs of the Indians and their calendar, have achieved only the creation panic and rumors about the imminent end of the world in that same ill-fated 2012. But there are similar religious calendars and the Aztecs and the Incas. In addition, weekly, monthly and annual cycles exist in almost every ancient culture, from Scandinavian to Australian.
Calendars of various religions and countries
Each religion, each nation acquired its own chronology system. Gregorian (which, with minor edits, people use today) believes that the path of development of mankind has more than 7500 years from the creation of the world, and in the Islamic - mankind is only a little over 1400 years old. In the Buddhist calendar, civilization has been living in just another era, Nirvana, for more than 2500 years.
The founder of the Bahá'í religion, who lived in the early 19th century, established his own calendar, perhaps the shortest to date. And it is only about 180 years old. By the way, the Bahá'í calendar has a rather elegant poetry, the original names of the months. You can read more about the origin and development of this religion in the corresponding Wikipedia topic.
But in Ethiopia, the Coptic calendar was adopted, and the second millennium for this country came only in 2007. Ethiopia is one of four states that did not switch to the generally accepted Gregorian calendar.
Roman calendar and the origin of the term
The definition of "Calendar" originated in the days of the Roman Empire, and literally translates as "debt book". The root of this term is the concept of "kalenda". This is every first day of the month when the imperial governors collected interest on debts.
At first, the Romans had a year of 304 days and ten months, and 61 days were not included in any month. This system was introduced by Romulus. Pompilius added two more months during his reign, "februarius" and "januarius", and subsequent rulers often changed the calendar, sometimes for economic and sometimes for military needs.
Julius Caesar ended this chaos. After learning about the Egyptian system for calculating months and seasons, he instructed astronomers to accurately calculate the length of the year. It was then that they considered that the year lasts 365.25 days, and they decided to make every fourth a leap - a day longer to compensate for the hours remaining after a strict division by 365 days. Such a calendar was the most accurate, and it was called "Julian".
Introduction of the modern calendar
Amendments to a fairly simple, correct, but not entirely accurate Julian calendar were introduced by a member of the Jesuit order, mathematician and astronomer Christopher Claudius. The Italian Hugo Boncompagni, known in history as Gregory XIII, who became Pope in 1572, became famous for numerous reforms, including the calendar one, instructing Claudius to develop a more accurate chronology system.
Over the past years, errors have accumulated in the Julian calendar - and Easter should have been celebrated on March 21, and not traditionally on the spring equinox, March 10. And according to the canons of religion, this is unacceptable. Claudius refined the calculations, eliminated the discrepancies between the Julian calendar and the actual movement of the Sun, and a new version of the calendar, now accepted throughout the world, was born. It got the name "Gregorian calendar".
In 1582, the Gregorian calendar was adopted by France, Poland, Portugal, Spain, by 1584 - Austria, Switzerland, Spanish colonies on the American continent and many others. But the general transition to the new chronology took several centuries. For example, Great Britain adopted the new calendar only in 1752, and Russia and China only at the beginning of the 20th century.
Until now, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar has not happened in Iran, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nepal, and Bangladesh, Israel and India live according to two calendar systems at once - it is not difficult for them to use the common world and traditional chronology in parallel.
