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From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com

Forwarded post:

The Case of The Missing Days

The calendar we are about to recycle, the English or the
so-called Christian calendar, is the original Roman
calendar as standardized by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE,

It was subsequently reformed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582
CE.

In the calendar introduced by Julius Caesar, the Julian
calendar, all years including the century years that were
completely divisible by 4 were designated as leap-years
with 29 days in February.

This caused the length of the Julian year to be 365.25 days
-- a number that was in excess of the correct length of a
year at 365.2422 days by 0.0078 days.

With the passage of time, the error continued to accumulate
and a revision was made by Pope Gregory in 1582.

He decided to omit the accumulated error, which by then had
reached an embarrassing 10 days: he ordained that the ten
days October 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 in 1582
be simply canceled.

Thursday, October 4, 1582 was forced to be followed by
Friday, October 15, 1582.

The leap-year rule was also revised by designating the
century years 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2100, 2200, 2300, etc.
as common or non-leap years with 28 days in February.

The years 1600, 2000, 2400, 2800, etc., which are wholly
divisible by 400 were termed leap-years with 29 days in
February.

This manipulation of the calendar reduced the average
calendar length down to 365.2425 days and the excess
residual error was now only one day in 3300 years.

Since that day of the missing days, October 12, 1582, all
scientific and historical records have been maintained or
expressed in terms of this revised calendar known as the
Gregorian calendar by those who follow the Western system.

Earlier historical records, however, are still maintained
by the Julian calendar, which has no 0 BCE or 0 CE years.

According to the Julian calendar, the year that precedes 1
CE is designated 1 BCE, except in astronomy where 1 BCE is
considered to be the leap-year 0 CE, 2 BCE as -1 CE, 3 BCE
as -2 CE, 4 BCE as -3 CE, 5 BCE as -4 CE (leap-year), and
so on.

The Catholic states of Europe were quick to adopt the
Gregorian reformation, but other countries took longer to
accept it, the latest being Turkey in 1927.

Officially, Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in the
year 1752 by eliminating the accumulated error of 11 days
from the month of September -- September 3 through 13 were
canceled, and Wednesday September 2, 1752 was followed by
Thursday, September 14, 1752.

The Julian calendar which had been in effect until
September 2 was renamed as the Old Style (O.S.) calendar,
and the Gregorian calendar in use that day forward was
named New Style (N.S.) calendar.

The British people who were occupying other countries at
time also followed this calendar conversion.

The abbreviations BCE and CE expand to Before Common Era
and Common Era, and are equivalent to BC and AD,
respectively.

End of forwarded post.

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj

"A king, though endowed with little prowess,
starting on an expedition at the proper time,
in view of the good positions of the planets,
achieves greatness that is eulogized in the
scriptures." -- Brhat Samhita, 104.60

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)