Re: U2 has it

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

flash wrote:
> Smashing! Gregorian dates are useless for astronomy, since they have a
> hiatus of 10 or 11 days.
Actually, there's a 13-day difference. The Julian calendar was
off by 10 days when Pope Gregory XIII reformed it in 1582, when
10 days were cut from October. (The Spanish mystic St Teresa of
Avila, the first woman to be declared a doctor of the Church,
died on the night of Oct. 5-15.) The reform entailed making leap
years only of those century years evenly divisible by 400; in the
Julian calendar, all years evenly divisible by 4 are leap years.
Thus 1700, 1800, and 1900 were leap years in the Julian, but not
in the Gregorian calendar, and so the Julian gained a further 3
days. But as 2000 was a leap year in both, no further discrepancy
accumulated.
Rather shockingly, I discover that people in Eastern Europe
(where the Julian continued in everyday use until the 20th
century) were by no means clear about the difference. My father
wss born on Sept. 10/22, 1881, in Romania. But his matriculation
papers from the Grand Ducal Technical Upper School in Darmstadt
(Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, whose ruler was the
brother-in-law of the last Czar), give his birthday 9 Sept.,
correct in 1901, when he matriculated, but not in 1881, when he
was born. A photo of my paternal grandmother taken in 1921 is
stamped (by the Romanian photographer) "21/31/ Aug. 1921"--121
years out of date!
Further amusing results of the calendar change: when William of
Orange was invited by the Whig aristocracy to become King of
England, the Low Countries had already adopted the Gregorian
Calenda; Great Britain had not. So William arrived in England a
few days before he left the Low Countries.
--
Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx