Re: U2 has it

[Carl Distefano cld@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from Harry Binswanger  Thu, 21 May
2009 15:02:29 -0700

>> 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.
>
> Talk about your jet lag!

Still, not as bad as when the Julian calendar was introduced, in 46
B.C. Caesar decreed that this year would have three extra months, or
445 days instead of the normal 355 (well, 378 if you count the
regularly scheduled leap month for that year). Things got better
after that -- they called it the "last year of confusion" -- except
that for a while they were adding a leap day every three years
instead of every four. Whoops.

Incidentally, you can read the "RFC" for the Gregorian calendar --
the papal bull Inter Gravissimas -- in three languages, including
the original Latin (marred by an illiterate spelling error in the
page headers), here:

http://tinyurl.com/intergravissimas

As edicts go, it's a collegial document, giving credit where it's
due -- to a book by Aloysius Lilio, which "we forwarded a few years
ago to the Christian princes and to the large universities so that
this work, which is the business of all, is carried out with the
consultation of all."

--
Carl Distefano
cld@xxxxxxxx