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2023-02-15 20:02:01 What is one of the world's most accurate calendar systems?

The Gregorian calendar deviates from the solar year by 1 day in 3236 years.

The Solar Hijri calendar, also known as Persian Calendar, Iranian Calendar, and SH Calendar, used in Iran and Afghanistan, is more accurate.

A year in this observational calendar has 12 months. The first 6 months have 31 days, and months 7 through 11 have 30 days. The last month, Esfand, has 29 days in a common year and 30 days in a leap year.

One of complex mathematical rules that determine the distribution of leap years in it achieves a degree of accuracy very similar to that of the observational version, requiring about 110,000 years to accumulate an error of 1 day.

Its first version, the Jalali calendar, was developed in the 11th century by astronomers including the Persian scientist Omar Khayyam.

Although the Solar Hijri calendar shares this start date with the Islamic Hijri calendar, the calendar systems are not related otherwise.

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2023-02-15 00:11:14 What calendar is used by Muslims?

The Hijri calendar or the Muslim/Islamic calendar is used by Muslims around the world to determine the dates of religious events and observances.

Its time reckoning is tied to the Moon phases. Each month lasts for a full lunation, the time span from one New Moon to the next.

It has 12 months with 29 or 30 days. The months of Rajab, Dhū al-Qa‘dah, Dhu al-Ḥijjah, and Muḥarram are considered sacred.

This calendar is completely detached from astronomical seasons. So, an Islamic year is about 11 days shorter of the solar year and for practical reasons most Muslim countries officially use the Gregorian calendar.

Islamic time reckoning begins in 622 CE when the Muslim prophet Muhammad migrated to Medina. This event is referred to as Hegira or Hijrah.

Since the Islamic calendar years are shorter than Gregorian years and the current year number is lower, the year numbers of the two calendar systems will coincide on May 1, 20874 CE/AH.

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2023-02-12 19:30:39 What is the traditional Chinese calendar?

Although modern-day China relies on the Gregorian calendar, the traditional Chinese calendar still governs the dates of important holidays such as the Chinese Lantern Festival, and is used to select auspicious dates for weddings, funerals, moving, and starting businesses.

This calendar’s origins can be traced as far back as the 14th century BCE.

It has 12 months of 29 or 30 days that each begin on the first day of a new moon. Leap months, rather than days, are added as needed.

Each month can be referred to by an animal name or a number within each 60-year cycle, which also correspond to particular hours of the day, as well as years in the zodiac cycle. This pattern dates back about 2000 years.
In order of occurrence, the animals are













Variations of the traditional Chinese calendar are used in Korea, Vietnam and the Ryukyu Islands.

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2023-02-11 19:25:25 What is the Hindu calendar?

The Hindu calendar, also called Panchanga, was developed in ancient times on the Indian subcontinent. The earliest mentions of Hindu time reckoning can be found in the Vedas, a body of sacred texts of Hinduism, some of which date back to around 1200 BCE.

It offers a multi-dimensional method of structuring time, combining information about lunar and solar days/months, the movements of the Sun and the Moon in relation to stellar constellations, and other astronomically defined time spans.

In fact, there is not one single Hindu calendar, and there are many regional variations of it.

The Saka Samvat is used officially in India since 1957 and by Hindus in Java and Bali. It starts from 78 AD and is based on the tropical zodiac signs rather than the sidereal year - the time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun.

The Vikram Samvat is used in Nepal and some Indian states, starts from 57 BC and uses lunar months and the sidereal year.

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2023-02-10 18:47:51 Who first introduced a leap day and a 24-hour day?

Ancient Egyptians were the first to realise the need for a leap day. They discovered that the star Sirius lined up with the rising sun around the time of flooding every year and also noticed that Sirius lined up with the sun for about six hours (a ¼ a day) different every year. They inserted a leap day into their calendar for a while but then abandoned it.

They also invented the 24-hour day, divided into two cycles of 12 hours each, and helped pioneer the concept of time as an entity.

In the ancient Egyptian calendar, the year had 365 days and consisted of 3 seasons: Akhet (Flood), Peret (Emergence) and Shomu (Summer), plus an intercalary month of five epagomenal days treated as outside the year proper. Each season included 4 months of 30 days.

According to scientists, the ancient Egyptian calendar was highly accurate, a miracle of its time and contributed to the development of different ancient calendars.

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2023-02-07 23:47:51 Why did the Gregorian calendar replace the Julian calendar?

The Julian calendar was the predecessor of the Gregorian calendar.

The Julian calendar was proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar, took effect on 1 January 45 BC and was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandria. It had 365 days divided into 12 months but it did not correctly reflect the actual time it takes the Earth to circle once around the Sun.

In the Julian calendar, a leap day was added every four years, which is too frequent, and progressively important religious holidays were out of sync with the fixed dates for astronomical events.

The introduction of the Gregorian calendar allowed for the realignment with events like equinoxes and solstices.

Because of this error of the Julian calendar, a number of days had to be dropped when the Gregorian calendar was adopted .

The gap between these two calendar systems will increase to 14 days in the year 2100.

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2023-02-06 19:04:48 What is the most widely used civil calendar in the world?

The Gregorian Calendar is the most widely used calendar in the world today.

It was first introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.

It has a 365-day common year divided into 12 months of irregular lengths.

11 of the months have either 30 or 31 days, while the second month, February, has only 28 days during the common year. However, nearly every four years is a leap year, when one extra—or intercalary—day, is added on 29 February, making the leap year in the Gregorian calendar 366 days long.

The days of the year in the Gregorian calendar are divided into 7-day weeks, and the weeks are numbered 1 to 52 or 53.

Although the Gregorian calendar is named after Pope Gregory XIII, it is an adaptation of a calendar designed by Luigi Lilio, also known as Aloysius Lilius (1510-1576), who was an Italian doctor, astronomer, and philosopher. He died six years before his calendar was officially introduced.

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2023-02-02 19:43:34 What is the oldest calendar still in use?

The Jewish calendar, derived from the ancient Hebrew calendar, has remained unchanged since about AD 900.

It is the official calendar of the modern state of Israel and is used by the Jewish people throughout the world as a religious calendar.

The starting point of Hebrew chronology is the year 3761 BC, the date the World was created according to the Old Testament.

The Jewish calendar is luni-solar, based on lunar months of 29 days alternating with 30 days. An extra month is intercalated every 3 years, based on a 19-year cycle.

It’s interesting to note that, while many Jews outside of Israel have adopted the Gregorian calendar, they do not generally use the abbreviations A.D. and B.C. related to Christianity. Because Jews do not believe that Jesus is Lord, dates of the Jewish calendar are designated AM (Latin anno mundi, "the year of the world"), C.E. (Common or Christian Era), and BCE (before the Common Era).

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2023-01-31 08:53:37 Who used the first written calendars?

Man's interest in the sky is at the heart of three separate stories - astronomy, astrology and the calendar.

So, it’s not surprising that the Babylonians, who seemed to be the first great astronomers, began to use the first written calendars in the ancient cities between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Clay tablets marked by cuneiform writing indicate that those Babylonian cities would have had their own calendars with their own names for the months of the year.

All cities had a month called, “Extra,” allowing them to reset the calendar in the same way as a leap year.

Each Babylonian week lasted seven days. Each seventh day was a rest day on which officials were prohibited from engaging in certain activities that couldn’t be done on the 28th day of each month, either.

Perhaps the strangest aspect - during the lunar cycle, the Babylonian month, lasting 29 or 30 days, made it so the last week of each month lasted eight or nine days.

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2023-01-28 14:31:58 Open / Comment