Most Famous Calendars in the World

2020 is the new year known to most people worldwide. Nevertheless, on other existing calendars, we could be in a different year. Furthermore, other calendars may have different new year dates. One can only wonder how many existing calendars are there and are in use. Most Historians and students doing historical studies would have an idea, but how many people are aware of the fact that there are multiple calendars? Webexhibits states that there are approximately 40 calendars worldwide. All these calendars can be categorised under 3 types namely; Lunisolar, Solar and Lunar calendar. Nonetheless, the most known calendars worldwide are; Gregorian, Islamic and the Chinese calendar.

The Islamic Or Hijri Calendar

1441 is the islamic year known to most people worldwide. The Islamic calendar is a Lunar calendar and contains 12 months that base on the motion of the Moon. The calendar started in AD 622 during the emigration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. It is a Lunar calendar with 12 months in a year of 354 days or 355 days. But starting In 639 CE, Caliph Umar started the Muslim Calendar counting it from the Lunar month.

Each month starts when the lunar crescent is first seen by a human observer’s eye after a new moon. A day within the Islamic calendar is defined as beginning at sunset. Since the Islamic Lunar year is eleven to twelve days shorter than the solar Gregorian year, the Islamic New Year doesn’t come on the same day of the Gregorian calendar every year. The first day of the week corresponds with Sunday of the planetary week.

The Lunar and Traditional Chinese Calendars

According to both the Lunar and the Traditional Chinese calendar. The Lunar calendar incorporates both the cycle of the moon, as well as the cycle of the sun. This makes the Chinese calendar a lunisolar calendar. The moon takes about 29.5 days to cycle around the Earth, which is one month according to the Chinese. Therefore, each month starts on the day of the new moon. There are still 12 months in a year, only now instead of a month varying from 29 to 31 days, the Lunar calendar has 30 days in odd months and 29 days in even months. This is a total of 353 days in a year. Every 30 years, there’s 11 leap years with 355 days a year.

The traditional Chinese calendar still bases the average length of a month on a Lunar cycle, so either 29 or 30 days in a month. These do not alternate within a year, like the Lunar calendar, but are based on the position of the sun. As the lunar calendar is off by 11 days each year, the traditional calendar adds an extra month every 3 years to make up for the 33 days.

The Gregorian and Julian Calendars

On the Gregorian calendar, we are in the year 2020. Also, we celebrate the new years on the 1st of January every year. Initially, the year began when the Roman Empire consuls entered administrative office. All this was before the implementation of the Julian calendar. There were three beginning dates these were; 1st of May, 15th of March and 1st of January. The Julian calendar adopted the 1st January as the beginning date of the year. This date has remained in place even with the Gregorian calendar.

Gregorian calendar is the international civil calendar. Several countries have their own calendars but they still use the Gregorian for administrative purposes. The calendar has 12 months in total with 365 days for a common year and 366 days for a leap year. According to the history website, the Julian calendar was introduced before the Gregorian. In 46 B.C. emperor Julius Caesar implemented the Julian calendar. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar, hence, replacing the Julian calendar. However, both these calendars are Roman. Both calendars are also solar calendars because their dates show the position of the earth on its revolution around the sun.How the first calendar looked like in 1582

The main reason for introducing the Gregorian calendar was the Easter celebration. The most important day for Christians is the resurrection of Christ and Gregorian is Christian calendar. Easter day is when Christians celebrate Christ’s resurrection. Geonologytime magazine states that the spring equinox date was miscalculated on the Julian. Easter was the first Sunday following Full Moon after Spring equinox. This worried the pope thus, he introduced the Gregorian which was calculated correctly for the Easter day. The other reason was that Julian calendar was miscalculated by 11 minutes. These 11 minutes made the Julian longer than the Gregorian calendar.