Happy Washingtons Birthday!

[Gold Winger 9]

Yep, that's what I said, "Washington's Birthday." There is no such Federal Holiday as "Presidents' Day," that's a creation of the PC police in an effort to make everyone think that we're also celebrating Lincoln's Birthday.

 

http://www.opm.gov/Operating_Status_Schedules/fedhol/2008.asp

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Of course, it isn't even Washington's birthday yet.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Then again, George Washington shares his birthday with another person very close to most of us here. A person who did great works for the youth of the world. Of course I am talking about Olave Baden-Powell

nee St Clair Soames.

[Trevorum 24]

Actually, Washington was born on Feb 11, 1732. Twenty years later the books were cooked, and his birthday was changed to Feb 22.

[SSScout 1624]

Try a little history...

 

http://www.mountvernon.org/files/GW_and%20Religion.doc

[Gold Winger 9]

"Of course, it isn't even Washington's birthday yet."

 

That's rather shocking coming from someone who advances the notion that the Federal Government knows all and must be obeyed.

 

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Well, that certainly wouldn't be me. I think most of my posts where I discuss when it's the right time to start killing politicians have been removed, though.

 

well, at least this time Merlyn is not advocating anyone to kill right now OGE (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[packsaddle 753]

Heh, heh, I'd just like reassure everyone that each of us is only born once from our biological mother. Ol' George is no exception. But the ol' switcherooo that happened to his birthdate also happened to everyone else who started out under the Julian calendar and ended up under the Gregorian calendar...maybe not as famous though.

 

The more interesting story is why the adjustment was needed. I'll leave that one to the forum sleuths.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Well Pack, one reason why the switch from Julian to Gregorian was made, the chants are so much cooler...

[Trevorum 24]

One of the most interesting things about that whole calendar shift is that it took place at different times in different countries. Russia didn't go Gregorian until after the revolution. And by then it was +13 days instead of the +11 that got tacked onto George et al. So for several centuries both systems were used and folks had to indicate under which system a date was calculated - old style or new style. Must have been confusing.

[packsaddle 753]

Yep, it's probably a good thing we weren't trying to put men in space or land robots on Mars back then. H'mm but I guess we blew the robot thing anyway, didn't we. At least that wasn't because of different styles of chants.

[Gold Winger 9]

I find the strange uses of the term "Julian" somewhat perplexing.

 

Being Orthodox, I grew up knowing about the Julian Calendar, it was part of life.

 

Then one day when I was about 18, the Chief said to me, "Winger, PMS schedules use the Julian date. Do you know what that is?" Sure, it's 13 days off the regular calendar. Wrong! It's the day of the year. 1 JAN is 1, 1 FEB is 32, and so on.

 

Now the Julian Date is the number of days since some time waaay back when. Actually, that system goes back to the 1500s but no one cared about it until everyone got a PC on their desk and became a programmer.

[packsaddle 753]

Gold Winger, Cool! You're the first to mention this. We use the Jdate for our long-term databases, both within years and between them. But it could just as well be called the 'day number' or something like that. The idea is that regardless of calendar accuracy, the days go by and we just count them. This day-to-day perspective is appropriate for our studies because fish, for example, have little knowledge of calendars. They DO, however, respond to the diel and lunar cycles. So for our data, those notations occupy additional columns.

I'm delighted to notice that the others do the same thing.

[Trevorum 24]

As I recall, the Julian Day system starts in 4000 BC or thereabouts, doesn't it? At least it avoids the equally arbitrary BC/AD confusion. Someone told me we're coming up on some big odometer rollover - 2 million days? 3 million?

 

You might be interested to learn that in archeology, the AD/BC distinction is completely avoided (except in historical research) and dates are generally expressed in years before the "present". However, "the present" is forever frozen in time as AD 1950. Turns out that all the atomic tests have thrown off the whole radiocarbon curve since then. So 500 years BP is actually AD 1450, not as you might think AD 1508.

[Gold Winger 9]

AD/BC? How un-PC. Isn't supposed to be CE and BCE? Heck, it was a Pope that invented the calendar, let's stick with AD and BC.

 

I'm sure that if the world had adpoted the Islamic calendar, we'd be using AM and BM.