From: kriman@acsu.buffalo.edu (Alfred M. Kriman)
Newsgroups: soc.singles,sci.math,sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: New Years Eve 12/31/00 11: 59:59PM
Summary: March was first month.
Date: 5 Jul 92 08:19:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul2.192229.2123@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
(Mark William Hopkins) writes inter alia:
>Keep in mind that back when they started counting years, 0 hadn't been
>invented yet.  So the 0th year was called year 1 and it marked tbe beginning
>of the 0th Century, which was called the 1st.  And so every century after that
>has begun in the year '01, with the Century's number always one ahead of the
>first one or two digits of the year (till '00).
>
>2000 is part of the 20th Century.
>
>And the 0th month (January) was called the first (as in 1/1/91), and the
>0th day of each month was called the first...

   While I agree that the ordinal number preceding "1" is best designated
by "0," this is a convention, and there is no overwhelming good reason to
make "zero" the "first" ordinal (and "one" the "second," etc.).  January
_is_ and _should be_ the "first" month, and should be numbered "1."
However, this comment was relevant; on the net, apposites repel.
   Since this unnatural thread won't die a natural death, I have tried to
funnel the follow-ups.  In keeping with the spirit of the thread, let me
now make some comments that don't really bear on the point made by the
previous poster.
   Mostly, that the first month of the year was originally March.  This is
clear from the names "SEPTember, OCTOber, NOVember, and DECember."  (And
the leap day was added regularly at the end of the year.)  "Originally"
means in the Julian Calendar. 
   I think that the beginning of the year was first moved to January during
the calendar reform instituted under Pope Gregory #13.  (October 4, 1582,
was followed by October 15, 1582; thenceforth leap days were eliminated in
years divisible by 100 but not by 400.)  I _guess_ that 1583 was the first
year to start on January 1.
   England had already broken with Rome by then, so it was many years before
the calendar reform was adopted there and in the British colonies (as the
"New Style").  Thus, George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 (N.S.)
and February 11, 1731 (O.S.).  I believe that he always regarded the old
style day number as the "correct" one.
   The same thing happened in other Protestant and Orthodox countries.  There
must be plenty of people today with a worse version of Geo. Washington's
problem:  Romania was on the Julian calendar as late as 1919 (a 13-day shift).
Greece changed in 1923.
   Incidentally, I don't think that the first century was so regarded until
about the fourth.  Years used to be numbered as "nth year of the reign of
[abuserid]."  Needless to say, n was not often a large number.  The current
year numbering reflects the entrenchment of an early estimate of Jesus's
time (CE = Common Era, better known as A.D. = Anno Domini).  Another scheme
was to count from the founding of a political entity, as Republican China
did from 1911.  (This was a good way to advance exaggerated claims of
antiquity.)
   Julius Caesar instituted the custom of adding a leap day in every
presidential election year on the advice of Sosigenes, in 46 BCE (year 709
of Rome); he was assassinated two years later, close (by mid-millenial
reckoning at least) to the new year.  Draw your own conclusion.

   Questions:
(1) Why was the beginning of the year shifted to January?  Was it to get it
close to Christmas?  To make 1/6 to 1/4 of the population a year younger?
To get an early start on white sales?  To stave off Daylight Savings Time?
(2) Most Christian holy days are (I understand) fixed relative to Easter,
(which is the first Sunday following the first full moon following the vernal
equinox, in western churches).  So what happened to Christmas?
(3) The Orthodox churches use the Julian Calendar to compute Easter.  Does
this mean that they _regard_ March 21 as the date of the vernal equinox, as
dictated by the Nicene Council of 325?  This can't explain a one-week
offset, if they use the first-full-moon formula.
(4) When _was_ the current century numbering adopted?
(5) Under the Old Style calendar, March 25 was the first day of 1752.  This
would have been about two weeks after the vernal equinox.  What exactly was
the scheme for the new year?  Nine months before Xmas?
(6) Are we (USA) really the only nation on earth that writes 12/10/92 for
day 10, month 12, of year '92?  I would think that any (self-assertive)
country with a language in which one says something equivalent to "December
10, 1992" _in that order_, might use the variant ordering.

   References:
Any Almanac; an article in Scientific American in Autumn 1982 (end of the
first 400 year period of the Gregorian Calendar; notice that this has a
number of days in it that is divisible by seven).

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