The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1922-10-17
THIRTEEN MONTHS
AND A HOLIDAY
Is the Sort of a Year that the Inter.
national Fixed Calendar Year
Would Dope Out for Us

oy HIS unscIenLIHc Juggling OF the
calendar, has caused unnecessary con-
fusion for centuries, say members or
the international Fixed Calendar
League, who advocate the adoption or
| 13-month year with each month con-
tanning twenty-eight days and an in
ternational holiday added each year to
make up the 365 days of the solar cal
endar
There is really no reason why the
calendar should be so broken I'D, the
league members say. In the days or
the ancient Egyptians, who originated
the calendar, working with the shad-
ows of pyramids and obelisks, the cal
endar was arranged with Thirteen
months of equal length, with a five
days festival at the end of the year
to square things up with the sun. The
reason for the pyramids and obelisks
was their use in astronomy and cal
eEdar making, it is said.
In 46 B. c., Julius Caesar, dissatis-
fed with the moon-chasing calendar
of his day. adopted the Egyptian sys-
tem-with notifications. The Romans
were superstitious about odd numbers,
so Julius started to do with the cal
endar as he had done with the world
and when he was through the equal
length months were all broken up, the
| five day festival was eliminated, ana
the months were arranged alternately
with 80 and 81 days.
So pleased was the Roman senate
with Caesars work, it Immediately
named the seventh month in his calen-
dar in his honor, and the system is
known as the Julian calendar.
That worked for a while until one
of Caesars successors, Augustus by
name, changed his forbear's work, in
B. c. %, and when his heavy hand
was through, the calendar resulted in
its present state; the odd and even
numbered months were changed
around and arbitrarily fixed, Febru-
ary was given a little more liberty
than the other months, and the half
years were set on unequal basis-the
first half getting only 181 days ano
the second 184. The Roman senate
retaliated by changing the name or
the eighth month to honor Augustus,
as that was his birth month as July
was Julius's.
Constantine the Great" says a
league publication, conferred the
ever-welcome Sabbath rest each 7th
day on Europeans, but the unequal
lengths of % and 31-day months i'm
posed by julius and Augustus have
since forced the Constantine weeks
yearly to slice months into different
weeks, and at month-ends almost split
weeks into parts, necessarily but
needlessly confusing the weeks and
months"
In 1852 another change was made,
when Pope Gregory XIII found julius
had been wrong in his arithmetic and
made an error in computing leap
years, and that as result ten extra
days had piled up from somewhere In
the meanwhile. The sun and the
earth, according to that timetable.
were not travelling on the same sched-
ule. So Gregory did what many other
people wished they could do, he dug
out ten days from one month-Octo-
Der of that year-and threw them into
the discard, in order to readjust the
21st of March to the Equinox and the
rest of the calendar to the seasons.
Since then we have been travelling
under the Gregorian calendar. In con-
sequence, the league complains, Greg
ory moved the Christian years end
(which ever since the establishment
of the Christian era had been cele-
brated as Christmas) from Christmas
to January 1st-one week farther
away from natures year's-end, De-
cember 22nd" Russia and Greece
did not comply with this edict, and
continue as of old.
After several national and interna-
tional conferences during 1922, OF
those interested in the new movement,
final international conference was
planned to be held sometime during
the coming year. It viii be held here,
at the presidents call Many repre-
sentatives of world nations will at
tend, to discuss program which IN
ciudes:
Location of the "Year Day." remov-
al of "leap day" to be midsummer's
holiday, the best arrangement to at
the present 50 yearly weeks into per