MONTHLY CALENDAR

... Recommend this page to a friend.

Return to the ... Directory ... aka "Navigator."

A QUICKIE LESSON ON THE CALENDAR
(this lesson is from: encarta.msn.com ... certainly not from my feeble brain)

A calendar is a system of measuring time for the needs of civil life, by dividing time into days, weeks, months, and years. Calendar divisions are based on the movements of the earth and the regular appearances of the sun and the moon.

A day is the average time required for one rotation of the earth on its axis. The measurement of a year is based on one revolution of the earth around the sun and is called a seasonal, tropical, or solar year.

A solar year contains 365 days, 5 hr, 48 min, and 45.5 sec. A month was originally calculated by ancient peoples as the time between two full moons, or the number of days required for the moon to circle the earth (29.5 days). This measurement, called a synodic, or lunar month, resulted in a lunar year of 354 days, 11‚ days shorter than a solar year.

In modern calendars, however, the number of days in a month is not based on the phases of the moon. The length of the months is approximately one-twelfth of a year (28 to 31 days) and is adjusted to fit the 12 months into a solar year.

For information concerning the names or arrangement of the months, google each of the 12 months. The week was derived from the religious tradition requiring rest from labor every seventh day. It is not based on a natural phenomenon. The Romans named the days of the week in honor of the sun, moon, and various planets.