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Consequences: Calendar Club and Happy New Year

Surprised you didn't mention the further attempts at reform of the Gregorian calendar like the World Calendar, would tie in nicely to the opening about religious objections.
 
Slight correction, @Thande — it’s 5780 and it has been for months. Except not really a correction, because most of 2019 was 5779, as you probably well know.

This does come to the problem of comparing “what year it is” — the Hebrew calendar ties the beginning of the civil year to the seventh new moon following the beginning of Spring, which means that we change the number a completely different time than you lot, who have tied it to the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord.

Amazingly, Ethiopia, Iran, Afghanistan and Nepal still haven't switched to only using the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes.

On the same note, while the Gregorian calendar has been gaining prominence recently, Israel from 1948 - despite the hyper-secular leadership of the state when it was founded - adopted the Hebrew calendar as its primary civil calendar in addition to being the Jewish religious calendar, which is why things like Israel’s independence day and memorial day seem to move around the same way that Jewish religious holidays do; all of them are on fixed dates, just on a different calendar which doesn’t follow the same rules as the Gregorian.

An interesting note is that the United States actually acknowledges the Hebrew Calendar as a civil calendar for the purposes of calculating the date of Education Day, the 11th of Nisan, which commemorates the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust, which falls on the 27th of Nisan, which coincides with the Israeli Yom ha-Shoah instead of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 27th of January.
 
Slight correction, @Thande — it’s 5780 and it has been for months. Except not really a correction, because most of 2019 was 5779, as you probably well know.

This does come to the problem of comparing “what year it is” — the Hebrew calendar ties the beginning of the civil year to the seventh new moon following the beginning of Spring, which means that we change the number a completely different time than you lot, who have tied it to the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord.
Rather than trying to track all that, I just said it's that and then said except it isn't, because they don't all start at the same time.
 
Ironically ISTR the Egyptian calendar's drifting through the seasons has possibly made it more useful for dating things for modern Egyptologists, due to that being more reliable at telling you what year such and such happened than trying to track it down via the king lists....
I think the medieval French also used Easter as New Year's Day at some point, which I suppose arguable makes that version of the Julian Calendar lunisolar.
Also I thought the Chinese rule was (usually) the second new moon after the winter solstice?
 
The talk of calendars in Rome being politically-motivated reminds me of the Hindu epic Mahabharata where, after losing a rigged game of dice where their kingdom was gambled, the Pandava clan was forced to give up their kingdom to their cousins the Kauravas for 12 years, then a thirteenth year where they had to be undiscovered. If discovered, they’d have to be in exile for 12 more years. So, the Pandavas spent 12 years in exile, then on the thirteenth year they hid in the royal palace of a neighbouring kingdom by being hired as servants. However, they then were forced to reveal themselves due to an attack by another kingdom.

However, then the Pandavas stated that the years referred in the game were the slightly shorter lunar years, according to which the thirteenth year has passed, but the Kauravas refused stating that the years were solar, according to which the thirteenth year had not passed. After failed negotiations, the result of this was a massive and brutal war of succession where all the Kauravas were killed and the Pandavas won not only their own kingdom, but the Kaurava kingdom as well.
 
The talk of calendars in Rome being politically-motivated reminds me of the Hindu epic Mahabharata where, after losing a rigged game of dice where their kingdom was gambled, the Pandava clan was forced to give up their kingdom to their cousins the Kauravas for 12 years, then a thirteenth year where they had to be undiscovered. If discovered, they’d have to be in exile for 12 more years. So, the Pandavas spent 12 years in exile, then on the thirteenth year they hid in the royal palace of a neighbouring kingdom by being hired as servants. However, they then were forced to reveal themselves due to an attack by another kingdom.

However, then the Pandavas stated that the years referred in the game were the slightly shorter lunar years, according to which the thirteenth year has passed, but the Kauravas refused stating that the years were solar, according to which the thirteenth year had not passed. After failed negotiations, the result of this was a massive and brutal war of succession where all the Kauravas were killed and the Pandavas won not only their own kingdom, but the Kaurava kingdom as well.

You see this started off relatively amusing before just going extremely dark.
 
I think the medieval French also used Easter as New Year's Day at some point, which I suppose arguable makes that version of the Julian Calendar lunisolar.
Also I thought the Chinese rule was (usually) the second new moon after the winter solstice?

The Spring Equinox (21st March) used to be used as New Year as well. Translated to the Gregorian Calendar that became 1st April, and the people who insisted on celebrating New Year by the Julian Calendar became known as April Fools.

Lady Day (Feast of the Annunciation, 25th March) was also used as New Year’s Day in England. In the Gregorian Calendar that’s the 6th April *, which is still the start of the UK Tax Year. So it’s not only religions that resist calendar changes, the taxman does as well.


* OK, it’s a bit more complex than that, because of course it is. After Britain moved to the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, the start of the tax year moved to the 5th April, which is Lady Day plus the eleven lost days. Then after 1800 it was shifted to the 6th April to allow for the extra Leap Day there would have been under the Julian Calendar. Basically picture the Revenue continuing to use the Julian Calendar until some time after 1800. Strangely there wasn’t another shift in 1900, proving that even the taxman can get used to changes eventually.
 
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