Every Day Is Special: calendar

Showing posts with label calendar. Show all posts

January 14 - Old New Year in Slavic Countries

Posted on January 14, 2022

This is an update of my post published on January 14, 2011:

According to the Julian calendar, the New Year doesn't start until today. So I guess you could say this is another chance to set New Year's Resolutions – this time, make them ones you can really keep!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, different countries adopted the Gregorian calendar at different times. The Slavic countries were latecomers to the switchover, and even after they made the change, the Eastern Orthodox Church continued to use the Julian calendar in the 20^th Century.

These days, many people in Slavic countries such as Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (...and I could go on and on!) still celebrate Old New Year. Rather than a festive holiday with fireworks, like January 1, Old New Year tends to be a quieter, nostalgic holiday with traditional large meals and family sing-alongs.

These girls are wearing Macedonian folk costumes.

Old New – an Oxymoron

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that contains two contradictory terms. “Old New Year” has a meaning, sure—it's the day that the Old calendar marked as the New Year—but it sounds funny when you are not familiar with it.

Here are some familiar oxymorons. Notice that, although you might know the meaning of the terms, they are kind of weird when you stop to think about their contradictions:

jumbo shrimp
the living dead
virtual reality
extremely average
a dark light
an open secret
a new classic
deafening silence
sweet sorrow
a silent scream

In literature, an oxymoron can express a paradox or make you think. For example, Shakespeare's romantic character Romeo says:

"O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!

Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!"

This speech tells us about the confusion of Romeo loving someone he is supposed to hate and hints at the fighting and death that have happened and will happen in the play. The paradox of love and violence is caused by the warring families, and Shakespeare uses oxymorons to express that.

Also on this date:

Birthday of brain-chemistry pioneer Derek Richter

(Mid-January to Mid-February) Magh Mela in India

Paleobotany pioneer Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart's birthday

Musician Dave Grohl's birthday

The “real” birthday of the U.S.A.

Dress Up Your Pet Day

Birthday of artist Berthe Morisot

Hot Foods Month

International Kite Day

Anniversary of the Human Be-In

Ratification Day in the U.S.A.

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February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

July 2 – Second Half of the Year Day

Posted on July 2, 2015

Today is the 183^nd day of the year – so it is the halfway mark, with 182 days of 2015 before today, and 182 days of 2015 after today.

(Of course, on Leap Years, the end of July 1 is the halfway mark of the 366-day year.)

Second Half of the Year Day is a perfect time to look back at 2015, so far, and figure out how things are going. Maybe make some adjustments. Remind yourself of your goals, or decide to cross out or rededicate yourself to your New Year's resolutions.

More halves...

Do you know what an element's half-life is? It is the amount of time it takes for half of its unstable atoms to undergo radioactive decay.

Most elements are stable, not radioactive. But some elements (and some isotopes) are radioactive and spontaneously emit energy or particles.

For example, atoms of the radioactive element radium can “decay” by emitting either alpha particles or carbon-14 nuclei – and thus become another element (either radon or lead). We can never predict exactly which particular radium atom will decay, exactly when, but the the decay rate for a bunch of radium atoms is predictable; radium's half-life is the amount of time it takes for half of the atoms in a sample of radium to decay.

Radium-226 has a half-life of about 1,600 years.

Learn more about radioactivity by watching this video. The Second Half of the video talks about half-life.

Do some half-themed puzzles: Here's one in which the Second square is cut in Half. And here is one called Half a Barrel.

Read Give Me Half!, by Stuart J. Murphy, and then try the trick of how to share food fairly: one person cuts the food in half, and the other person chooses his or her half.

Read Half Magic, by Edward Eager.

Also on this date:

World UFO Day

Ommegang Pageant in Belgium

Flag Day in Curacao

Anniversary of the invention of water skiing

Anniversary of the beginning of the “Golden Age of Airships”

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March 25 – Old New Year's Day

Posted on March 25, 2015

Have you ever wondered why the year starts in January? And why does January start on one particular day rather than any other?

I'm sure you realize that different cultures have created completely different calendars, with completely different months and different New Year's Days.

Of course we know that the idea behind a day – one full rotation of the Earth – and a year – one full revolution of the Earth around the Sun – are based on astronomy...BUT when to separate one day from the next (sun up? in the middle of the night?) is arbitrary - which means that we could divide one day from the other in many different equally-valid ways, and of course different cultures have chosen different division spots, with ancient Jews counting sunset as the mark of a new day, and ancient Egyptians counted sunrise as the mark of a new day. Today, we use midnight as the starting point of the new day - which is usually around the middle of the night in most locales.

When to separate one year from the next is arbitrary, too.

Back in the old days, before our world was so connected and became so “small,” every culture's calendar was quite different, and of course they all began on different days. When civilization-straddling empires were created, there was a push for the calendars to become more standardized, but it wasn't until recently (the 1900s) that all countries used the same standardized calendar (the Gregorian calendar) for at least official purposes.

You know about Chinese New Year, celebrated in late January or in February—and celebrated in many countries in addition to China. Ethiopian New Year is celebrated on September 11, Nowruz (Persian New Year) is celebrated on the vernal equinox (March 20 to 22), and Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) is celebrated in September or October. Many other local New Year's Days are celebrated in various places in the world.

For almost 600 years, March 25 was celebrated as the first day of the year in England. It was the day of the Catholic Feast of the Annunciation, and it was sometimes called “Lady Day” (the lady being Mary, mother of Jesus, in the Christian religion). It was a fairly convenient day to start the new year, since it was close to the equinox (the start of spring) and farmers had little to do in their fields.

In 1752, England and its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar, which named January 1 as the first day of the year. Also, when the calendar change was made, 11 “lost days” had to be removed in order to get the calendar back in tune with astronomical reality. For a while dates were given according to the old calendar AND according to the new, so “Old Lady Day” was April 6, and “New Lady Day” was March 25.

Some remnants of the old system remain, with the United Kingdom's tax year starting on April 6.

The time of calendar change was very difficult for many. There were many irregular months because of the removed days—for example, months that were only 18 days long in the year of the switch-over, or even months that were longer than usual in that year. Some nations had weird one-time-only dates like February 30. To add the confusion, different countries adopted the Gregorian calendar in different years (and even different centuries!), so they had to remove fewer or more days than other nations, ranging from removing ten days (as France and Italy did in 1582) to removing 13 days (as Turkey, the last nation to adopt the modern calendar, did in 1927). People were uncertain about whether to change over their birthdates to the new style or stick with the old. I have written about the bumps and problems experienced during calendar change several times before: here and here and here.

Also on this date: