Let's talk about what a calendar is, what it is. This word has had different meanings throughout its history. The term itself comes from the Latin calendae. This is the first day of the month in ancient Rome. Later, the word calendarium appeared - a debt book, in which, on every day of the new month, obligations and interest on them were entered by creditors. But in the Middle Ages, the word has already acquired a modern meaning.
Calendar: definition and brief classification
So what is a calendar in our understanding? This is a kind of reference system for long periods of time with their division into shorter periods (year, month, week, day). The need to coordinate years, months and days among themselves has led to the emergence of several calendar systems, or rather three:
- solar calendar
- lunar,
- lunar sunny.
The solar calendar was based on the rotation of the Sun, while coordinating
day and year. Lunar - on the movement of the moon, coordinating the day with the lunar
month. In the lunar-solar calendar, an attempt was made to combine all these time intervals.
From the history of the calendar
And now we will make another small excursion into history. A calendar showing the date, day of the week, month and allowing you to calculate how much time is left before any important event was first created in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians needed it to count the number of days remaining before the flood of the Nile. For this date, they had to prepare in advance: to clean the canals, repair the dams. For them it was extremely important. If they didn’t hold the water, it would just go to sea, and the crop would disappear without moisture. Priests noticed that during the summer solstice a very bright star appears in the sky at dawn. Now she is called Sirius. It was on this day that the Nile began to flood. Then the Egyptians calculated that this star appears once every 365 days. These days they were divided into 12 intervals, each of which consisted of 30 days (now we call them months). The last 5 days they placed at the very end of the year. This is what the “progenitor” of our modern calendar had.
Over time, the Egyptians realized that they made a mistake in the calculations. After all, after 4 years, Sirius was late for a whole day. And after eight years, one more ... They found out that the year has 365 days and another 6 hours. The difference seems to us to be quite small, but for 4 years they run the whole day. The Egyptians did not change their calendar. And only in 46 BC. e. changes in their time system were made by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. After that, the calendar was called Julian. According to it, each of the months of the year consisted of a different number of days (31, 30, and February - 28). One day was added to the shortest (February) once every 4 years. Now we call this year a leap year. As you know, it has 366 days.
The modern calendar is slightly different from the ancient Egyptian and Julian ones, it has its own nuances ... More thorough calculations allowed determining the length of the year in seconds. It would seem what a trifle all these minutes and seconds. But for 400 years, they came running for three days. Consequently, the calendar was again inaccurate. And again, it was necessary to make adjustments.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XII made his changes and named the calendar
Gregorian. Time passed. For many years, the discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian calendars amounted to as much as 13 days. Europe switched to the time proposed by the pope. But Russia has long preferred the Julian. In 1918, when switching to a new calendar, 13 days had to be removed right away. It was January 31 in Russia, and February 14 immediately came. And so far, when describing the events of a hundred years ago, many sources often indicate not one, but two dates - the old and the new style. It should be noted that the current calendar, to which we are all accustomed, is also imperfect and contains its own errors. We are talking about an error in one day, which accumulate over 3300 years.
Varieties of calendars
It should be noted that at present the calendar is not just a means of determining the day, year, month. It has wider application, and therefore, there should be several varieties of it. We all heard, for example, about children's calendars. And there is also a church, astrological, meteorological, etc. Briefly dwell on each of them. And let's start with the children’s.
For the smallest
So, let's figure out what a calendar is for children, discuss what its purpose and distinctive features are.
Children's developmental calendar helps parents monitor the growth and changes in the development of the baby: has he gained enough weight? What is his height? Is there any progress in motor development, psycho-emotional? How to deal with a child, what are the first toys to offer him? Each baby is individual, and therefore develops at its own pace, and its achievements may not coincide with generally accepted norms. The task of calendars for children in this case is precisely to help parents orient themselves in the necessary parameters.
Watch the weather
It would be unfair in the course of our conversation to ignore such varieties as astrological, religious, weather calendars. The first two species are well known to us. But the issue of weather calendars should be studied more carefully. The history of their occurrence is interesting. So, let's look at what a weather calendar is and what it is for.
Its appearance is due to the first need of people to systematize
their observations of weather events. Information about weather conditions on various days of the year, months, and seasons was recorded in the calendar. By analogy with astrological, weather predicted the future state of nature. Such calendars were still in Ancient Rome. The peak of their passion falls on the Middle Ages. In those days, the Book of Nature was even published (1340).
It is easy to imagine how difficult it is to calculate long-term forecasts.
Serving them only on the basis of ordinary signs will be naive. But many weather calendars have been drawn up in this way. And people believed in them. One of those was the centennial calendar. And he arose as follows. In the 17th century, Abbot Mauritius Knauer lived. After a hard war between Protestants and Catholics
the lands were devastated and ruined. Agriculture fell into decay. Abbot Knauer was very concerned about this. The weather did not please him either. Snow and late frosts prevented sowing in spring, crops were drenched from showers, summer drought ruined the crop. Abbot Knauer began keeping a weather observation diary. Of course, he did not have any meteorological instruments. He simply recorded his observations, gave subjective assessments. The Holy Father mistakenly believed that the weather depended on bright lights. He tried to find patterns. The abbot made his observations for 7 years. According to his calculations, the weather was to repeat in the next seven years (according to the number of celestial bodies known at that time). However, he subsequently became convinced that his forecasts did not materialize. Having failed, the abbot stopped keeping his observation diary. However, on their basis, he still published a book-guide for monasteries on farming.
Years passed, and the records of the abbot came to the astrologer-doctor Helvig. And he, using them, published a weather calendar for a hundred years, the so-called centenary calendar. Of course, he was unscientific. But used throughout Germany. And in translations spread throughout Europe. The scope of its application was quite wide, sometimes the forecasts even coincided. And people quickly forgot about unjustified “predictions” ...
Well, you and I examined what a calendar is, how it appeared, and remembered what varieties exist today. We hope that the information was useful to you, and you learned a lot of new and interesting things for yourself.