The Meanings of words used in Calendars

Re-usable Calendars
Before we start, your calendar for this year will have the correct days for future years after a cycle of six, five, six, eleven years repeated. You have to work out where in the cycle we are today. The 1997 calendar was six years ago and works for 2003. Unless it is a leap year in which case it is every 28 years

Month
Based on the moon and thought to be 28 days, but in fact it is a little longer than that. So some adjustment was necessary (see below)

Week
A quarter of a lunar month, marked by the major periods: full moon, waning half moon, no moon, waxing half moon; each of seven days.

Day
From sunrise on one day to sunrise on the next. The time it takes for the sun to circle the earth. Which is the way it seemed at the time.
Incidently, there are 1440 minutes in a day. Did you make good use of every one?

Hour
Said to be the Sumarian system of counting. It goes like this. Your hand has four fingers (also called digits) and one thumb. Using your thumb you can point to the three joints on each of the four fingers, counting up to 12. That is enough to count periods (hours) during the day.
Then using the other hand count 12 periods (hours) during the night.
Which equals 24 hours in the day.
And your foot is about a foot long, and is divided into 12 inches.
A 12 based numbering system (Duodecimal) would have been a far superior system since 12 has many more factors than 10 (1,2,3,4,6)

Minutes and Seconds
Using the Sumarian system again; counting on one hand, when the number 12 is reached, count this set onto a finger of the other hand. You have five fingers, plus zero, means a maximum count of six times 12 equals 60. So 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute.

Year
The time it takes from the shortest day through to the next shortest day. The moon orbits the earth about 12 times a year. Which was convenient because this is 12 times 60 which is the Sumarian count total, giving 360 days. Not quite accurate (see below)
Incidently, there are 8760 hours in each year. Of which you probably spent 2920 of them asleep. And not more than 1680 at work. How did you spend the remaining 4160 hours?

Octal Numbering
Seven became a favourite number of the Babylonians, and including the figure zero is now the basis for the Octal numbering system which is associated with Binary.
Seven is also well used in the bible; seven deadly sins etc. It is also said to be about the limit of the human brains attention; you probably have seven close friends, and a manager can cope with seven immediate staff members.

Digital Numbering
The Romans preferred the digital numbering system and insisted that there must be 10 months in the year. January and February were added later to make 12, which is why September is now the ninth month.
In fact the Romans screwed it up, and the Arabic digital numbering system started correctly at zero is a much better concept.

Julian Calendar
In 46BC Julius Caesar had his mathematicians work the calendar out again to an (almost) perfect figure of 365.25 days. He brought in a year of 445 days to mop up the loose days, and then set a year of 365 days, with a leap year every four years.

Easter Day
In AD532 a monk called Dennis the Short was charged with fixing the date of Easter which was beginning to wander down the year towards Christmas. He defined Easter as the first Sunday on or after the first full moon after the Spring equinox.

The Year AD1
Dennis also devised a date for the birth of Christ which he called AD1, (which we now know should have been AD0)

Gregorian Calendar
The Julian Calendar was fine but in fact it was 11 minutes a year out. In 1582 the great astronomer Copernicus produced the Gregorian Calendar, knocked 10 days out of October 1582, and stated that leap year should not be an extra day at the turn of each century. In 1752, 170 years after the rest of the world had gone Gregorian, England dropped 11 days and came into step. There were riots in the streets, people chanting "give us back our 11 days".

The UK Tax year
Taxes were originally paid on the winter quarter day 25th December, but this was not convenient for all the reasons, so they made it the Spring quarter day 25th March. The 11 day calendar adjustment moved this forward to 5th April.

 
Interesting Websites
http://www.timeanddate.com/ - World clocks and calendars
http://www.indepthinfo.com/weekdays/theweek.shtml - More on days of the week
http://www.kjvbible.org/seven_days.html - the importance of Seven in the Bible.
http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/roman/months.htm - the names of the Months
http://www.wonderclub.com/AllWorldWonders.html - The Seven Wonders of the Ancient and Modern Worlds
http://www.threes.com/ - the importance of the number Three

Moslem New Year
Measured from the Holy Prophet’s immigration from Mecca and 2003 AD is 1421 AH
http://www.irib.com/Special/Farvardin/ghamari%20year/html/en/new_page_1.htm

Chinese New Year
2003 - Feb 1 4700 Year of the Sheep
2004 - Jan 22 4701 Year of the Monkey
2005 - Feb 9 4702 Year of the Rooster
2006 - Jan 29 4703Year of the Dog
2007 - Feb 18 4704 Year of the Boor
The Years are counted from 2600 BC when the Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the zodiac
http://www.new-year.co.uk/chinese/calendar.htm