Our calendar

As long ago as 3,000 years, the Egyptians observed the movement of the sun and stars. At times, the sun was worshipped as a god. The Egyptians also had a calendar. They divided the year into 12 months of 30 days each. At the end of the year, they counted 5 extra days. Every 4 years, they added another day.The old Roman calendar, by contrast, originally had only 10 months. These months had 29 or 30 days. An extra month was added every 2 to 3 years. The first month of the year was March. Some of our month names are still derived from Roman numerals. For example, December was the tenth month. In Rome, people spoke Latin, and the Latin word "decem" means "ten".September was the seventh month for the Romans, followed by October, November and December. At some point, the Romans added 2 months. The month “Januarius” was named after the god Janus. He supposedly had two faces, allowing him to look into the past and the future.In 45 BC, the famous general and statesman Gaius Julius Caesar reformed the calendar. January then became the first month of the year. The months lasted 30 or 31 days, while February had only 29 days. The month of July still commemorates the name of "Julius" Caesar. The following month was named after his successor, Emperor Augustus. He ruled at the time when a child named Jesus was born in Bethlehem.However, this calendar was inaccurate, because a solar year lasts exactly 365.24219 days, about 6 hours longer than 365 days. Our current calendar was established in 1582. We divide the year into 365 days, and every 4th year we add a leap day, February 29. Our calendar is a religious calendar. It begins with the year in which Jesus Christ was born. However, it is now believed that Jesus was probably born in 4 BC. The Jewish calendar counts the years from 3761 BC. According to Jewish belief, that was the year the world was created. The Islamic calendar begins in 622 AD. That was when the Prophet Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina.