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| It is difficult to determine when the first calendar came into being, though some forms must have existed very early in the history of man.
The ancient Egyptians had a useful solar calendar. A solar year is the time taken for the Earth to travel once around the Sun and is almost 365 1/4 days. The type of calendar that we now use was invented by the Romans in around 46 B.C. The Julian calendar was divided into 12 months starting with January. Each month had 30 or 31 days except February which had 28 days and 29 each forth year. The length of a year in this calendar was exactly 365 1/4 days |
This calendar worked for some 1500 years but was 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the solar year. By 1580 the Julian calendar was 10 days out so, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII took 10 days from it and made other changes that we see in the calendar of today. The Gregorian calendar is accurate to 26.3 seconds each solar year and an adjustment is made each 100 years by removing the extra day in the leap year February. Note: the 2008/10 calendars are in a new format and include Australian public school holidays. |
