The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-23
WASHINGTON BORN FEB. Il

given in the evening on board big East India merchant ship anchored in the harbor
 The Tammany society of New York city early in the year 17sO adopted the resolution which follows:
 That February g from this day and ever afterward commemorateo by this society as the birthday of the illustrous George Washington, president of the United States of Amerca.'
 Washington birthday celebrations by that time were becoming popular inS many parts of the country and some times they were celebrated on Februaryn il and sometimes on February 9.
 One of the earliest of these 22d ob- servances was at Philadelphia in 17s1 and the Philadelphia Gazette of February 23 of that year contained the following re- port:
 Yesterday being the anniversary of the birthday of the President of the United States when he attained the fifty-ninth year of his age, the same was celebrated here with every demonstra ton of public joy. The artillery and light infantry corps of this city were paraded and at F o'clock federal salute was fired. The congratulatory compliments of the members of the legislatures of the union, the heads of the departments, foreign ministers, officers, civil and mili tary. of the state the reverend clerg and strangers and citizens of distinetio were presented to the President on thu suspicious occasion"
 The birthday celebrations at Phiadel- | pha while that city remained the seat of the government were imposing and inn pressive.
 The change in Washingtons birthday cate was brought about by the changd in the calendar. England in 1752 adopted. the Gregorian. or reformed calendary which corrected the error of the Julian3 calendar. Though this calendar was notI adopted by England until 1752, it hahI l been in use in Spain, Switzerland. GerrI many and the Netherlands since 1883. inI Poland since 1886 and in Hungary since| 1 15S7 The new calendar dropped 10 days| l sc that that event, which took placeI I February II, old style. was deemed to| have taken place February %, the daysI l2th to Fist, inclusive, being omitted. 1 The history of the calendar presents| many changes. many errors sought to| be corrected, some of which corrections| proved to be errors. Difficulty wasI found in making the calendar year agreel with the solar year. The present calen- dar which bears the name "Gregorian. was the work of Pope Gregory XIII, assisted by learned astronomers andl mathematicians. The calendar of record 1 ,,~ has descended was the calendar of the| Romans, which divided the year into 1o months of BOA days. This was corrected in 713 B. C., and the year was given| 35o days. divided among 12 months. The 1 year under this calendar was 10 days tool l short, and the error accumulated until 1 the calendar seasons were out Of joint; with the actual seasons Spring in the calendar was autumn in the field. apd midwinter in the country was midsum- mer on the calendar
 Under Julius Caesar this condition was corrected and he allowed 36o IA days to
 be the year. giving three years in sue cession 365 days and allotting to every
 fourth year 366. He declared that Janu-
 ary should be the first month, so that September. October November and D. cembey which had been the seventh.
 eighth, ninth and tenth months from March, which had been the first month of the year, lost the significance of their
 names. Caesar gave to one of the months his name. Julius, or July. His nephew succeeded him after his assas-
 sination, and taking the title Caesar Au-
 gustus, decreed that one month should be named also in his honor, and that
 month was called Augustus. or August.
 Seeing that July had 31 days in 1t and
 August only 30, he arbitrarily added an-
 other day to August, making it also con-
 tain 31 days. and taking that day out of February, which under Caesar had 29 days, thus reducing February to g days.
 He made certain other changes, such. for
 example, as taking one day each off Sep
 tember and November and adding them
 to October and December.
 In the Julian calendar there was
 mistake of II minutes year. The error amounted to one day in each 13O years.
 The cause of the trouble was pointed Tout by Aloysius Lilius, an Italian, and Pope Gregory, submitted the matter to a council of ledrned men, with the result that the calendar called the Gregorian
 calendar was instituted and adopted at various times by the different countries , This calendar has not yet been aoopteo by Russia. which adheres to the Julian calendar.