Amazon Quiz (October 7): In common years, October begins on the same day of the week as which month?
January
February
March
April
Answer: January
We humans have been attempting to figure out the best way to keep track of our time on Earth for thousands of years. It turns out that it’s more complicated than you might have imagined.
Pope Gregory XIII, who is credited with creating it, is the name of the Gregorian calendar, the most popular calendar in use today (although he did not come up with its system). Protestants and countries with a large Protestant population reacted sceptically to it; some thought the calendar was the work of the Antichrist, or at the very least an attempt to reassert the pope’s authority over them. Several Roman Catholic nations in Europe first embraced it in 1582, and it progressively expanded to the majority of the rest of the world after that. Greece was the final nation to use the infernal calendar, doing so in 1923.
There isn’t really a universal calendar that can be relied upon because of the different gyrations of the universe (Earth rotating on its axis, Earth orbiting the Sun, other planets affecting Earth’s orbit, the solar system orbiting the galaxy, etc.). The majority of calendars make use of so-called “intercalary” days or even months to align them with the tropical year (the time it takes Earth to complete its orbit of the Sun). Numerous nations (particularly in Asia) employ lunar calendars, which necessitate the addition of a 13th month every few years. Five intercalary days on the Mayan calendar were considered inauspicious and were marked by sacrifices and fasting.
Amazon Quiz: When it’s October, what season is it in the Northern Hemisphere?
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