How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
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How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
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Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#2In the UK, the financial year ends on 5 April. This is Lady Day (25 March) plus the 11 days lost in the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#3It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month. (Same for weeks to months, things a dumb feature of our calendar). But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right?
Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#4In Exodus 12:1-2, at the beginning of the section that decrees Passover, God also tells Moses and Aaron that the month of Passover is the first month of the year:
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "This month is
to be for you the first month, the first month of your
year. ..."Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#5In the UK, the financial year ends on 5 April. This is Lady Day (25 March) plus the 11 days lost in the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
Most US annual taxes are due April 15; is that related somehow?
Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#6It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month. (Same for weeks to months, things a dumb feature of our calendar). But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right?
Personally I'd go with 13 months of 4 weeks each.
The only issue I see would be if you were born on a Monday your birthday would always be on a Monday.
Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#7It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month. (Same for weeks to months, things a dumb feature of our calendar). But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right?
When you base the first of anything based on the phases of the moon, you'll more often not be aligned with the 1st of any month. Basing a calendar on the phases of the moon doesn't line up with the full orbit around the sun, so something has to change somewhere. ~365.25 / ~29.53 doesn't work out to a whole number, so whatchagunnado? Leap seconds and leap years! Perfect!
Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#8It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month. (Same for weeks to months, things a dumb feature of our calendar). But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right?
Arbitrary?I guess. I always assumed it had to do with the seasons. With the new year starting roughly after the winter solstice. Why the solstices aren't lined up with the month is beyond me. Buy it makes more sense to me that the new year basically starts with the days getting longer. As opposed to, I guess, when the plants start turning green again.
Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#9In the UK, the financial year ends on 5 April. This is Lady Day (25 March) plus the 11 days lost in the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
Most US annual taxes are due April 15; is that related somehow?
No, that’s the tax year, not when it’s due. The standard US tax year is Jan 1 -> Dec 31.
Re: How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year
#10It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month. (Same for weeks to months, things a dumb feature of our calendar). But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right?
The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes.
From the point of view of an inhabitant of the northern hemisphere, the choice remains between the Winter solstice, i.e. the moment when the Sun begins its journey on the sky back towards us, after reaching a maximum distance on the sky from us, and the Spring equinox, the moment when the Sun returns on the sky to the northern hemisphere.
Those who are guilty for the fact that the solstices and the equinoxes do not fall on beginnings of months are Julius Caesar and his astronomer consultant, Sosigenes.
The Roman calendar had been very bad and it had drifted extremely from the astronomical year. The calendar reform of Caesar has corrected the length of the year, but it has failed to align the solstices and the equinoxes with the beginnings of months. Instead of that, the Winter solstice fell on the 25th of December and the Spring equinox fell on the 25th of March.
So the calendar of Julius Caesar is the origin of the adoption of the 25th of December for the Christmas and of the 25th of March for the beginning of the year in several countries.
Additional confusion has been created by the Gregorian calendar, which has not restored the calendar from the beginning of the Christian era, but it has restored the calendar of the 4th century, when the rules for computing the date of the Easter have been established. The calendar of the 4th century had been shifted by 3 days since the calendar reform of Caesar, resulting in the current dates for the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox around the 22th of December and the 22th of March.
So now not only the solstices and equinoxes do not fall on the beginnings of months, but they no longer fall on the traditional days of the 25th of their months.