When was it realised that because a year is not precisely 365 days, calendars were out by a few weeks and had to be corrected by removing this period? Apparently many simple folk believed their lives had been shortened by this act.

Arpeggionist

It was Pope Gregory IX(?) who noticed the 11-day difference between the actual vernal equinox and March 21st, and determined that the error would only increase unless some small changes were made to the order of calendar leap-years. In 1582(?) he put started the new calendar, known since as the Gregorian alendar, in which three leap years out of every 400-year period would be dropped. Many lay populations were superstitious about the concept of subtracting 11 days from their lives. And jokes were made about how a man could go to sleep on the 2nd of October and wake up on the 14th. Not every country in Europe immediately changed the calendar with the pope, as it was seen to be a "Papist" calendar (there having been quite a bit of anti-Catholicism around northern and eastern Europe at the time). In England the change wasn't made until the 1750s, and in Russia it wasn't until 1917, whereupon the date of the "October Revolution" was suddenly celebrated in November. It makes for some quirky situations. My grandfather was born on March 13th and a cousin on the other side was born on March 2nd, yet my grandfather was the elder of the two men. (Fortunately, in our family we also go by the Jewish year, which has not changed in 2000 years.) Sep 29 05, 8:46 AM

picqero

Thanks Arpegg. Sep 29 05, 12:32 PM