Calendars and Time Paper
Athena Falconer
HIS/458 History of Human Discovery
September 22, 2015
University of Phoenix
Martha Kirchmer BAAG1E5459

Calendars and Time Paper
“The schedule of our lives is shaped by the movements of the earth, moon, and sun” (Announcing the Sky, 2008). The cycles of the moon and sun have stimulated the minds of many; this a stimulation of thought has created a map to measure time. With the cycles of the moon and soon humans have created seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years; and most important a way to track these moments with a calendar. The reason was for a way to organize everything, but most importantly for the seasons. “Hunters and farmers needed a calendar of the seasons- a way to predict the coming of rain or snow… Man needed a calendar to find his bearings in the seasons” (Boorstin, 1983, pp. 4-6). Though there are many types or ways of calendars that have been created throughout the centuries; calendars have been created to help with everyday tasks.
“The Gregorian calendar is today's internationally accepted civil calendar… named after the man who first introduced it in February 1582: Pope Gregory XIII” (Boorstin, 1983, p. 9). The Gregorian calendar is also known as the Christian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was first adopted from Italy but was formed because Pope Gregory was determined to set the calendar straight. This calendar is the typical calendar the many see today, 365 days and divided into 12 months. Pope Gregory made many changes from the Italian calendar that angered and confused the people. One was that ten days were to be dropped from October of 1592 so that October 4, 1582, was followed by October 15, 1582. Other changes are Leap Years, and a year is a Leap Year if the year is evenly divisible by 4, and the year can be evenly divided by 100. Leap years were introduced to keep New Year’s Day on the autumnal equinox and keep realignment with the equinox. The Gregorian calendar was created because the Julian calendar was slightly too long, but with the changes and new ways, society during this time never entirely accepted the Gregorian form.
The Egyptians invented a calendar that served everyday needs throughout their land. Unlike many other cultures, the Egyptians did not set their calendar to the lunar cycles. “The rhythm of the Nile was the rhythm of Egyptian life. The annual rising of its waters set the calendar… with its three seasons; inundation, growth, and harvest” (Boorstin, 1983, p. 6). The Egyptians calendar consists of 12 months, 30 days within each, adding up to a total of 360 days per year; this system was established thousands of years before the Christian era; before the Gregorian calendar. Years later the Egyptians adapted a second calendar based upon the phases of the moon. Five more days were added into the calendar to align with the solar year; these five days are considered as festive days and unlucky to work on them.
There are few advantages and disadvantages of both calendars. With the Gregorian calendar, the advantage, it is pretty accurate and used by most people today, buy most of the developed world, and lastly it is uncomplicated; one can predict the dates out for the next thousand years. Disadvantages are is that it is irregular, “To get the calendar back in tune with astronomical reality, a number of days were dropped in the new calendar, creating irregular months with only 18 days and odd dates like February 30” (timeanddate.com, 2014). The ancient Egyptians, were the first to discover the number of days in a year down to the nearest integer. Advantages of the Egyptian calendar was it was easy to use; easy to use 10-day weeks, 30-day months, and 365 day years. The Egyptian calendar was used for over 2,000 years. The disadvantage of the Egyptian calendar was that it truly did not equal a year of 365 days but of 365.2422 days. The calendar ran one day fast every four years; Egyptians invented a second new year. Decreed and named after Pope Gregory XIII, the Gregorian calendar is the internationally accepted civil calendar. Though many during this era did not accept the Gregorian calendar, it was adopted later by a handful of countries, with other countries adopting it over the following centuries.
The purpose of the calendar is to reckon the past present and future; it is to show one how many days until a certain event takes place. The Moon and Sun cycles became the basic unit for time reckoning; for others it was geographical locations of the people that strongly influenced the creation of the calendar (Egyptian and the annual flooding of the Nile River). Today cultures still follow their calendar; in our society and many others the Gregorian calendar has been adopted.

References
Announcing the Sky. (2008). Retrieved from WebExhibits: http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/

Boorstin, D. J. (1983). The Discovers: A History of Mna's Search to know His World and Himself. Random House Inc.,.

timeanddate.com. (2014). Retrieved from Time and Date AS: http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-gregorian-switch.html