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Re: Millennium Madness



Okay - I want YOU on my team when we play Trivia Pursuit!!!


"Metzer, Laren" wrote:

> Are we all thoroughly confused about the end/start of the third millennium?
> If so, we can blame it all on Dennis and Gregory.
>
> For the record, the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the
> third will be reached on January 1, 2001. This date is based on the widely
> used Gregorian calendar, the initial epoch of which was established by the
> sixth-century scholar Dionysius Exiguus (aka Dennis the Short - I guess
> today we would call him "vertically challenged"), who was compiling a table
> of dates for Easter. Rather than starting with the year zero, Dennis decided
> (quite logically, I think) to begin with 1 A.D. Thus, the first decade (by
> definition, a unit of ten), ended in 10 A.D., the first century ended in 100
> A.D., and the first millennium ended in 1000 A.D.
>
> The fruit of Dennis' hard work, however, was not realized until much later
> and resulted from a perceived need to reform the method of calculating dates
> of Easter, the high point of the Roman Catholic liturgical year. Under the
> Julian calendar, the dating of Easter had become standardized, using March
> 21st as the date of the equinox. By the thirteenth century, however, church
> leaders noticed that the true equinox had shifted from March 21 to a date
> earlier in the month. As a result, Easter was drifting away from its
> springtime position and was losing its relationship to the Jewish Passover.
> Over the next four centuries, scholars debated the "correct" time for
> celebrating Easter and the means of regulating this time through revisions
> to the Julian calendar.
>
> In 1572, Pope Gregory created a Calendar Commission to fix the problem once
> and for all. The Commission recommended that the new calendar should begin
> with 1 A.D. as determined by Dennis the Short, and that a leap day be added
> every four years, except no leap year would be added to any year ending with
> two zeros (1600, 1700, etc.) unless that year was also evenly divisible by
> 400. Thus, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 did not have leap years, but 1600
> and 2000 did and will. To remedy the principal problem of establishing the
> date of Easter, ten days were deleted from the calendar, so that October 4,
> 1582  was followed by October 15, 1582. (This probably really messed up
> scheduled vacations, but certainly shortened the working month!). Pope
> Gregory accepted the recommendations and issed a papal bull to give them
> authority in 1582.
>
> The new calendar was not widely accepted at first and rioting occurred in
> England to protest the event. (And this was before soccer matches!)
> Protestant states initially rejected the calendar, but gradually accepted it
> over the coming centuries. The Eastern Orthodox churches rejected the new
> calendar and continued to use the Julian calendar with traditional lunar
> tables for calculating Easter. Because the purpose of the Gregorian calendar
> was to regulate the cycle of Christian holidays, its acceptance in the
> non-Christian world was initially moot. As international communications
> developed and the power of the church expanded,  the Gregorian calendar was
> gradually adopted around the world. Greece was the last European country to
> adopt the calendar in 1913. Today, although there are over 40 different
> calendars still in use for various purposes, the Gregorian calendar is used
> by all nations for at least some functions.
>
> So, what do we make of the overwhelming popular decision to celebrate the
> "new millennium" a few weeks ago? I can't really blame the public. 2000 is a
> very nice, round number. And, after all, sometimes language and common
> convention betrays reality. Don't we all refer to Sunday as part of the
> "weekend"? The media, however, could have done much to lighten the band
> wagon. Instead, they pushed us on with big headlines, televised events, and
> story overkill. It's interesting to note that many of the media
> organizations that accepted the "millennium scam" (for example, the New York
> Times), didn't pay much attention to how they heralded the beginning of the
> 20th Century, which, according to the Times headlines, occurred on January
> 1, 1901!
>
> Do I like the system? NO! But, until we modify the present calendar, we are
> stuck with the work of good ole Dennis. By the way, this is the same guy who
> calculated that Christ was born on December 25th!
> For me, as long as I get paid at the end of each month (year, decade,
> century, millennium), I don't care WHAT happened to those ten days in 1582!!
>
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> Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>