Trivia Challenge #2One Last Change
Over time, our calendar has gone through many changes to make it more accurate. Julius Caesar made significant changes in correcting the Roman calendar to reflect 365 days, and a leap year every fourth year. We still use those figures today. But, as the centuries passed, the calendar again, slowly became out-of-step with the seasons. By the year 1582, it was off by about 10 days.
Pope Gregory XIII (the 13th), noticing that Easter did not fall on the correct day as it did 1250 years ago, issued a proclaimation that he would correct the calendar (in those days that was considered a bold move for a Pope).
The Pope shortened the year 1582 by 10 days. Boy, he was not too popular for that! Many people thought he had actually shortened their lives by 10 days. Then, he declared every year that could be divided by 4 would be a leap year - except - the century years. Three of every four century years would *not* be a leap year. The fourth century year would. So, the years 1600, 1700, and 1800 were not leap years. The year 2000 will be a leap year.
We have adopted this calendar as the calendar presently in use today. It is called the Gregorian (named after Pope Gregory) calendar.
Because of the bold changes made by Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII, we now have a calendar that will take over 3000 years before it is even one day out of step.
Let's see, that would make it somewhere in the neighborhood of the year 5388 (according to astronomers). Well! Guess we don't have to worry about that for a while!