Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to The History Guy podcast Counterfactuals. What is a
counterfactual in the context of studying history, It is a
kind of analysis where we examined what might have happened
had historical events gone differently as a thought experiment. The
goal is to learn and understand history as it is
by talking about what it could have been as a
(00:27):
twist on the historical stories that we tell on the
History Guy YouTube channel. This is a series of podcasts
that dwell on that eternal question what if. I'm Josh,
a writer for the YouTube channel and son of the
History Guy. If you're a fan of the channel, you
already know Lance the History Guy himself. To liven up
our discussions on what might have happened, we have invited
(00:48):
Brad wagnan history officionado and a longtime friend of The
History Guy to join us. Remember that if you'd like
to support us, you can find us on Patreon, YouTube
and locals dot com. Join us as we discuss what
deserves to be remembered and what might have been. On
today's episode, we talk about calendars, specifically the Gregorian calendar
(01:10):
and how and why became the calendar we all used today.
What does that calendar mean to us, and what might
it mean if we used a different one without further ado,
let me introduce the history guy.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Here's an interesting question of historical trivia. What important historical
event occurred on September fifth of seventeen fifty two in England.
If you don't immediately know, you can't try to divide
it from the period. George the Second was King of England,
Henry Pelham was Prime minister. England was not technically a war,
but they were conducting a proxy war against the French
(01:50):
on the Indian subcontinent and in the colonies. Ben Franklin
conducted his famous electricity experiment with his kite earlier in
the year, in seventeen fifty two. And if you still
don't know what court of it happened on September fifth,
it's in fact it took question. No historical events of
any importance occurred in England on September fifth of seventeen
fifty two. And we know that because there was no
(02:13):
September fifth in England in seventeen fifty two. And the
reason why is a story that deserves to be remembered.
There is archaeological evidence that people had methods of keeping
time based on the lunar cycles as far back as
the Neolithic period. In twenty thirteen, archaeologists discovered a group
of pits and Aberdeenshire in England that appear to correspond
(02:35):
with the phases of the moon that date the fact
some ten thousand years and maybe the world's oldest known
lunar calendar, although there is some dispute over that claim.
As the phases of the moon are easy to observe,
they serve as an effected method of tracking time, and
lunar calendars are still used today by some cultures to
determine religious holidays, and while it makes sense to track
time based on the phases of the moon, there is
(02:56):
a problem as the Moon is not in sync with
this Sun, and thus twelve lunar periods is only three
hundred and fifty four days, well short of a solar year,
the period of time required for the Earth to make
one complete revolution around the Sun. The problem is that
tracking time by the moon means that lunar months will
cycle through the seasons, making a lunar calendar a poor
(03:17):
tool regarding one of the most important reasons to track months, agriculture.
The problem is usually addressed through a process called intercalation,
in which additional days are added in order to sink
a lunar calendar with the seasons. Since a solar year
does not include a whole number of lunar months, most
so called luna solar calendars count twelve lunar months as
(03:38):
a year, but add an additional month every two or
three years in order to recinc the calendar with the seasons,
and thus different years will have different numbers of days.
There are various methods of intercalation used for luna solar calendars,
although the one used by the Bank's islands of Vanuatu,
based on the spawning cycle of the Pololo worm, is
perhaps the most interesting. The early Roman calendar was such
(04:00):
a lunar solar calendar. The Romans tried to synchronize the
months with the first crescent moon following a new moon,
resulting in some months of twenty nine days and some
months more. They then used intercalation to sink the calendar.
Every other year they would shorten February and add elite
month or into kolaris. The process is still the reason
that February has twenty eight days on the modern calendar.
(04:21):
Ruman deaths were typically due on the first of each month,
called the calendaray, and payments were tracked in a ledger
book called the Calendarium, which is the genesis of the
term calendar. But the process was still imperfect, adding approximately
four days every four years too much to be in
line with the solar year, and of course, over time
that would show as the calendar would no longer be
(04:42):
in sync with the seasons. So in forty six BC,
Julius Caesar consulted a Greek astronomer named Sosagennies of Alexandria
to create a better calendar. The new calendar divided a
three hundred and sixty five day year into twelve months,
with some months thirty one days and some thirty, but
retaining the shortened twenty eight day February. But an intercalation
was still required to keep the calendar in sync, and
(05:04):
so one additional day was added to February every four years.
The so called Julian calendar was used by eating throughout
the empire, but it still had a flaw. The average
length of a year on the Julian calendar is three
hundred and sixty five point two five days, but a
solar year is actually slightly shorter three hundred and sixty
five point two four to five days, a difference of
(05:24):
three days every four hundred years, or about two tenths
of one percent. That seems small, but over enough time
it became a problem, and was most noticable in terms
of a specific religious holiday. Eastern Easter's the most important
Christian feast, and its date traditionally was determined based on
a solar event, the vernal equinox, but the date was
actually fixed by the calendar, and Caesar's two tenths of
(05:46):
a percent discrepancy meant that over sixteen hundred years later,
Easter was no longer landing where Easter had traditionally been
celebrated by early Christians relative to the vernal equinox, and
so in fifteen eighty two, Pope Gregory the thirteenth introduced
a calendary form called the Gregorian calendar that adjusted the
Julian calendar so that rather than a leap yer every
four years, every year that was exactly divisible by four
(06:09):
would be a leap year, except for years that were
exactly divisible by one hundred, but those centurial years are
leap years if they are exactly divisible by four hundred,
and so for example, the year two thousand should have
been a leap year because two thousand is evenly divisible
by four, but should not have been a leap yer
because two thousand is evenly divisible by one hundred, but
(06:31):
was a leapier because two thousand is evenly divisible by
four hundred. The Gregorian calendar is the calendar most commonly used,
at least for civil purposes throughout the world today, but
there was still a problem. In fifteen oh one, King
Henry the Seventh of England's oldest son, Arthur, the Prince
of Wales, married Catherine of Aragon, the youngest surviving child
of King Ferdinand the second of Aragon and Queen Isabella
(06:52):
the First of Castile. The goal of the marriage was
to cement an alliance between England and Spain, but just
twenty weeks after being married, are Arthur died of a
sweating sickness. Still trying to make a merit toole alliance
with Spain, Henry the Seventh betrothed his dead son's bride
to his second son, Henry, just eleven years old, although
the two did not to actually marry until fifty oh nine,
after Henry ascended to the throne as Henry the Eighth
(07:15):
following his father's death. But by fifteen twenty five, Henry
had become frustrated as he and Catherine had failed to
produce a male heir. One son had died after just
seven weeks, and two more had been stillborn. Moreover, Henry
had fallen in love with another woman, Anne Boleyn, who
refused to be seduced so long as she could not
be queen. That prompted Henry to seek an annulment from
the Pope, Pope Clement the seven, claiming that his marriage
(07:37):
was blighted in the eyes of God because Catherine had
been his brother's widow. The Pope refused on multiple grounds,
one of which might well have been that, following the
Sack of Rome in fifteen twenty seven, the Pope was
being held a prisoner by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles
the Fifth, who happened to be Catherine of Aragon's nephew. Frustrated,
Henry the Eighth married Ann Boleyn anyway in fifteen thirty three,
and the Pope responded by excommunicating Henry, causing England to
(08:00):
break with the Roman Catholic Church and establish the Independent
Church of England in fifteen thirty four, and England and
the Pope were still not on good terms forty eight
years later. When Pope Gregory changed the calendar while the
Gregorian calendar became Catholic Canony a papal bowl in fifteen
eighty two, most Protestant nations, like England, thomb their nose
at Gregory and continued on with the Julian calendar. In fact,
(08:20):
Henry's daughter, Elizabeth the First briefly considered adopting a similar reform,
but gave up under opposition from Anglican Church bishops who
argued that the pope was literally the biblical fourth Great
Beast of Daniel. The split was still an issue in
seventeen fifty four. Understand that George the Second was only
king because in his grandmother's time fifty Catholics, who were
(08:41):
higher in line for the throne, had been excluded based
on acts of Parliament that restricted the royal succession to Protestants.
But much of the rest of Europe had switched in
the intervening time, including the other half of the United
Kingdom Scotland, which had moved to the Gogorian calendar under
King James the sixth and sixteen hundred in Parliament complained
that becase because of the discrepancy in dates between England
(09:02):
and most of her neighbors. Frequent mistakes are occasioned in
the dates of deeds and other writings, and disputes arise
therefrom and so the Calendar Act of seventeen fifty moved
England to what was in effect the Gregorian calendar, without
actually using that name. To facilitate the change and sync
with their neighbors, eleven days had to be removed from
the calendar in seventeen fifty two to account for the
(09:24):
effect of nearly eighteen centuries of Julius Caesar's two tenths
of a percent miscalculation. Citizens of England went to bed
on September second, seventeen fifty two, and woke up the
next day on September fourteenth. Nothing happened on September fifth,
because there was no September fifth. In addition to moving
England to the Gregorian calendar, the Calendar Act of seventeen
(09:45):
fifty also made the official start of the new year
in England January first. Prior to the calendar Act. The
new year actually started in England on March twenty fifth.
There has been some historical argument that they were riots
based on the Calendar Act, that people in the streets
shouting give us back are lost eleven days, but most
historians agree now that no riots occurred, and that that
myth started because of a misunderstanding of some political satire
(10:05):
that was written to make fun of Tories who tried
to make the calendar reform an issue in the election
of seventeen fifty five. England was by no means the
last country to move to the Gagorian calendar. Sweden, for example,
tried to start moving gradually, starting in seventeen hundred and
taking out a day a year, but that resulted in
a period where they were off of both the Julian
calendar and the Gagorian calendar, and so they gave that
up and they didn't end up making the change actually
(10:27):
until a year after England, when in seventeen fifty three
they just made a short February. Many Eastern European countries
didn't actually make the move until the twentieth century. In Russia,
for example, the move was not made until after the
October Revolution of nineteen seventeen, and ironically, when the dates
are adjusted, the October Revolution didn't occur until November. Some
nations today still used the Julian calendar to determine things
(10:49):
like religious holidays, but use the Gregorian calendar for civil business. Notably,
former Protestant and Orthodox countries adopted the solar part of
the Gregorian calendar, but they rejected the lunar part, with
was us to determine the date of Easter. Instead, they
use a completely different calculation that comes to the exact
same answer but doesn't give credit to a Catholic pope.
And well, it might seem a historical triviality to say
(11:11):
that nothing happened in England between September fourth and September
thirteenth of seventeen fifty two because they skip those eleven days.
It is undoubtedly extremely useful that, despite all our other disagreements,
the vast majority of the world at least agrees on
today's date.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Now for the fun part, where I the History Guy
himself and longtime friend of the History Guy Brad Wagnan
discuss what might have happened if it had all gone differently.
So the episode that we're talking about today is specifically
about the seventeen to fifty Calendar Act, which is about
when England switched to the Gregorian calendar. But I think
that the best discussion here is talking about the Gregorian
(11:50):
calendar kind of in general. We can talk about, you know,
what if only England didn't switch back, but I think
there were lots of countries that switched afterward. There were
lots of countries that switch at various times between what
you know, fifteen eighty two and seventeen fifty, and there's
actually there's a handful of countries today that still don't
like using it, but everyone uses it more or less
(12:12):
as a civil calendar. I think that it's a really
interesting discussion because this is, you know, when you look
into why the Gregorian calendar is the one that is
the one we all use, the reasoning seems to be
it's the one that the Europeans were using, and they
happens to be the influential one as they colonized around
(12:32):
the world, and so we all just kind of adopted
the Gregorian calendar because it was the convenient one. And
so it's an interesting question to say, if the Europeans
had not chosen the Gregorian calendar, or if some other
power had had a more convenient calendar or something like that.
I mean, I think we could have a very different calendar,
and there's a cultural connection with the calendar.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
It seems like it would just be about, you know,
spinning planet, but there's a cultural connection with the calendar.
And part of the argument of the westernization of culture
is that the world seems to have gone with the
Gregorian calendar as the method for counting, and so what
if we had gone with a Jewish calendar, what if
we've gone with a Chinese lunaric calendar? And there were
(13:15):
experiments around the turn of the century to move to
a scientific based calendar that removed that whole cultural influence
from it, and those calendars would be interesting as well.
I mean there was proposed both to the United Nations
into the League of Nations.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Were new modern calendars too.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
So I think that it's an interesting discussion to say,
what if we simply came up with a different calendar.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I think there might be.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Historically some discussion of what if England had chosen not
to go, I mean, was still off with Scotland. I mean,
that was the question that they had going for a
long time. But I think that's a relatively minor discussion
that everybody sort of crawled their way over to the
Gregorian calendar. What if we'd gone to something else, or
what if we had never agreed on a calendar, what
if the world kept doing what we were doing before.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
Yeah, I do think that one of the things about
the Gregorian calendar is it just works, and so it
does a very very good job of keeping the three
hundred and sixty five point two to four days per year,
hours in a day, days per year, everything lined up
(14:23):
more or less correctly. Yes, there is a little bit
of variation that you do have to correct every every
every few years.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, but it was every fourth every year that is
divisible by four except years that are divisible by one hundred,
except for years that are divisible by four hundred. But
I mean that's that's a necessary math. But if you
had something like the International Fixed Calendar or the World Calendar,
then you would have exact all the months would be
the same. Yeah, I mean you're going to have I.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Mean, in the in the in the World.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Calendar, every every quarter has three months, one with thirty
one with twenty nine night.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
But Uh.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
And and then you have you know, an extra day
that instead of throwing in an extra day in February,
it's just like an extra day.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So, I mean there are other calendars that would be
you know correct to keep up with the you know,
the divergence between uh, you know, the earth spending on
its axis and the earth you know, rotating around the sun.
I mean, this is the Goring calendar is not the
only one that does that. But certainly if we had
stuck with a Julian calendar right then we would be
(15:31):
off by i mean quite a lot of time, and
the Easter would be coming in what is like.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
May, and you know how much how much would that
change the world.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, it's an interesting question.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Do you think that you know, part of the part
of the conflict, of course, uh. And the reason that
England held out for so long was that it was
perceived that this was some sort of a Catholic conspiracy
to try to to try to wean England away from
those bad Protestants and bring them back into the into
the fold.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
It was it was Protestant countries who you know, didn't
want to do what the pope said. I mean, it
came from a papal bowl, it was named after a pope. Well,
some of the Eastern Orthodox stuff are those those Eastern
Orthodox churches still essentially have have found a way around
it where they don't have to. Yeah, we're we're not
following the pope, even though you know, the Pope was
maybe in.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
This figure on Easter, they just came up with a
different calculation to come up with Easter on the same date. Yeah,
so that it's not the way the pope came to
to Easter. Uh. And there's you know Easter. Is that
what the first full moon after the vertal equinox, right,
so yeah, or the day after the Sunday after the
first Sunday after the first full moon after the fertile equinox.
That's that's Easter.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
It seems a little convoluted, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Well, I mean, but that's a that's a predictable date though.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
But see, like in North America, Native Americans in North
America or indigenous peoples or whatever whatever name.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
You want to use. Uh, And there was no agreement
it was there.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
There wasn't a singular calendar that was used, but I
mean it was I mean, you just you know, essentially
followed seasons natural seasons, but I mean they knew when
the when the equinoxes were, they were able.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
To track them there, they just didn't bother them. Sometimes
they didn't count months, but I mean they didn't bother
them that some months might be locos than some other month.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And the Romans prior to the Julian calendar, I mean,
they would just use a lunar calendar and they would
just throw in extra you know, we're gonna have an
extra month this year or whatever.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Every year they would just decide. Now that's if as
a world we agreed upon that, then it might be
hard to figure out when your birthday is.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
But I mean we would all agree that today is,
you know, March thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
First, well, and truthfully, I mean that's the calendar. Ultimately,
like many things that humans come up with, is just
our attempts to impose order on something that's going to happen,
whether or not. We you know, we have days and
weeks and months and names for everything, but in terms
of you know, something like you're trying to run an
empire or a business, it's rather important that we have dates.
(18:00):
And that's I mean, that's it it'd be hard to
imagine the modern world running the way it does without us.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Hard to take contracts, it's hard to figure out delivery.
But I mean that says when we have a different
modern world. So we have a modern world that is
very much tied to dates and says this will deliver.
You know, Amazon says going to deliver in two days.
Our contract starts in two days or whatever. We give
a date, you know, the contract last x period of
time loss if we sort of write it down. But
I mean in terms of time, I mean some cultures
(18:27):
you got to be right on time, and some cultures
are very loose on you know, it comes around the
time that you schedule and everybody operates.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
So if we hadn't chosen to go to a calendar
with very precise dates, might the way that we organize
the modern world be different?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And how different would we be?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Does it reflect because of course that there's there's reflections
both ways. Is that does does How much does the
calendar reflect the culture it was built in? And how
much have we kind of built our culture around the
calendar that we made? And that's that's true, is that
we are very you know, it's very important to us
that that in the in the Western world for the
most well, even that's not necessarily true across the whole thing.
(19:09):
People in Spain are not necessarily as as it might
be interested in the exact times people in Japan.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But I mean, depending on the job that I have.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I mean sometimes I mean day of the week is
the most important thing, and sometimes I'm.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Like, oh is it Wednesday? I forgot? I don't keep
dragging such things, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
So right, and we easily could have done I mean,
you know, we've got we've got week. Our week is
seven days. That's not necessarily the way we had to
do it. I mean, there are calendars that you know,
run in different different lengths of time, and it's I
think it's hard for us to even imagine, you know,
a non seven day week cycle. That's that's just how
we've how we've done It's everyone's done it that way.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
There's nothing natural to seven days.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
I mean, that's that's just something not really But I mean,
one of the complaints about things like.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
The World Calendar, the International Fixed Calendar, is that there
will be a couple of days every year that are
not counted in a week. You have two Sundays in
a row or you have now, And that is a
problem for some religions that really count on seven day weeks,
where you know, a seventh day Adventist or you know, well, actually,
you know, the Muslim religion, the Jewish religion, and the
(20:19):
Christian religion all venerate certain days in the week. Figuring
on a seven day week, so means that I'll turn
off if you have that extra day there. But I
mean again, that's you know, we built that culturally. I mean,
were we doing that before we had a calendar where
we just kind of eating meaning money moment on what day.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Of the week it was.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
How would we order the world differently if we just
never agreed on a calendar. I mean, what we find
out from people before the Julian calendar is that you
can figure out when to plant your crops without keeping
exact a match on the date.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
You can figure out when Easter is without counting dates,
just because you know the vernal equinox, which is something
that you could astronomically observed. So might we be a
different sort of people. Would we still be accomplished, but
would we accomplish differently if we didn't all have this
idea that we have to be agreed on the date.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
I'm pretty sure that the entire seven day week was
in fact imposed upon its spite of the British, as
Napoleon famous referred to that nation of shopkeepers, so that
they could keep their paybooks straight. But you know half,
you know, the all joking aside, It is incredibly important
(21:38):
for in a truly modern society, especially with the technological
level that we're at. It Actually fractions of seconds are important,
and it is interesting that in seventeen fifty it was
degrees of days that were.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, because we couldn't make sure to the to the
fraction of second. So could we not be doing all
this stuff we're doing if we weren't masuring to the
fraction of seconds? So would we simply be doing it differently?
I mean, one of the things it's interesting to me.
I did a little short ones on the SS Waramo,
which they actually did this on thes It's maybe a
real story, there's some question of whether it is, but
(22:18):
it's about and it's headed to Australia and at a
nineteen hundred on the January first, nineteen hundred, so they
go park on the international date line as across the equator.
So you've got these two lines, right, and so you
got the boat, and part of the boat is in
the twentieth or the nineteenth century, part of the boat
(22:38):
is in the twentieth century. Part of the boat is
in January, part of the boat is in December, part
of the boat is in the northern hemisphere.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Part of the boat is in the southern hemisphere.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
All that if you're parked on that, But I mean,
those are all just artificial lines that we make up
that spot.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
The fish in that spot in the ocean doesn't care, right,
So it just shows we've created all this fabrication. So
what are the odds that they could in nineteen hundred
actually park their boat in that right spot accurately that
because we didn't have GPS, would we be on station
or does it even matter if we're not on station,
if that's the best way we have to measure stations.
It's all those lines are just made up anyway, And
(23:12):
of course there's the problem that they did that in
nineteen hundred when actually technically the twentieth century doesn't start
until nineteen oh one.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Nineteen hundred is part of the of the eighteenth or
the nineteenth century, not the twentieth century. So I mean,
it's funny when you put that up because you've got
this whole thing. You know, it's got almost this gag
that says, if you're parked in the right spot at
the right time, then you can be I mean, if
you're across the date line right, you're in two different days,
you could straddle the date line. And if there are
places where you can literally straddle the equator and be
(23:38):
in both the northern and the southern hemisphere at two
different times. But that is all just stuff that we
made up. It's all stuff that is artificial lines on
a map that make no more sense to the fish
in the sea than anything else. The fish in the
sea managed to live without knowing what dat it is.
So it's an interesting question. I mean, it's maybe a
broader question we're saying because it's that whether we adopt
(24:00):
the Gregorian calendar.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
It's even if we just chose not to adopt a.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Calendar, I mean, if we if we just operated by
lunar cycles like we did prior to a calendar that
you know, roughly, you know, don't quite measure a year,
and so every now and again we'd just say, oh,
we got three extra days this week and we have
a festival that week, and that's how well, you know,
not going off a minute.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And then when we make a contract or a deal
or something like that, we figure, oh, well we'll do it,
you know, around this time and kind of when everyone's ready,
and we'll do it. And that's I mean, it's certainly
like you could run a society that way. It would
be a very different society than ours, because I mean, gosh,
you know these in order for us to say, like
(24:45):
is it necessary for us to have all of the
all of the rules and the calendar for us to
be able to move stuff from from you know, all
over the world to one place. Like that's how when
you order something on Amazon, I mean the number of
steps that all the raw material and everything in the
number of countries it all had to go through in
factories and people to get to you was reliant on
(25:05):
all those all these you know, these frameworks of things
that we all made.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Up to miss late.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Right, So I mean, if it's if it turns out
that that piece is late, I mean they just you know,
they send it to you another day.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Right, That's true. And how much does that eventually, Uh,
sometimes you don't get the thing you need on you know,
at the time you want.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
But I mean we could checks like we used to
float checks or whatever where they did on the check
means so much. But I mean, which was really kind
of the reason that England changed just because you couldn't
make it, you know, Scottland and England were on different
days even though they were doing business with each other.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
But I mean, but it does show how important I
mean talking about how important the calendar is. I mean
that the stuff that determined how this calendar worked and
why we changed calendars was stuff like religion, which was
of course very important to all the people who were practicing,
and it was very important when.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Easter was held.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And also it shows us, you know, the importance of
the things like business and the countries are able to
work together because that's without that, you know, that's it
does start to kind of put this problem between the
between our functioning world. The world functions differently if you
if you don't all run on the same calendar and
that at the same time. And that's why you know,
(26:16):
Scotland and England are having that problem. We could have
had that problem with with everybody else. And if if
we were all running on different calendars, which certainly is
not impossible to imagine that would would that be total chaos?
Or would we all, just like time zone.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Run on both calendars.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
They use the Gregorian calendar for for international business, but
they still use their lunar calendar decide their their their
religious states and stuff, and their religions don't seem to
collapse with that.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I mean, that's what religion was doing for a.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Thousand years before Julian calendar came along, right, So this
is interesting is that I saw, and I honestly don't
know how much of this is true, but I saw
an article in like Science magazine talking about how dear
are actually democratic h And what they're talking about this
is that how does the herd decide when.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
It's time to migrate? When it's time to move?
Speaker 3 (27:04):
And as they start pucking their head up and looking
and poking their head up and looking, and it's the
point that it shifts to more than half are looking,
all of a sudden, they will all go. And that
is to say that even I mean, in nature, there
is some sort of you know, basic idea where everybody
kind of looks at each other and says, Okay, it's
time to go. You know, could we operate that way?
Could we and and if we did if instead of
(27:27):
you know, it is March thirty first, if instead we
operated by a whatever a lunar calendar or the general
seasonal calendar, and then we all just sort of looked
at each other based on our experience that it's time
to plant crops.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Could we all still eat? And how different might we
be as a people? Might we as a people be
less warlike? Might we as a people be more able
to come to agreements on things? Or does a calendar
make it easier for us to have conflict?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
That's interesting? Certainly you can all know, we all know
a person who's so caught up in the technicalities of
something that they cause issues that there it's so important
that it's you know, we're running on whatever of the
deals in the exact minutes and exactly all the rules,
and that's does that you know?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Does that?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Does that cause friction? Whereas if we were all just
kind of as opposed to paying attention to all of
our very technical details that we've all made up, you know,
if we were more like go with the flow like
the deer, which is they're like, oh, when do we
go Well, when we all.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Feel like it, Yeah, we all look at each other
and then at some point we would be able to
make a decision. I mean, we're presumably humans have been
around for what as long as at least one hundred
thousand years. The calendar has been around for a couple
of thousand and so, I mean for some good deal
of time. We didn't seem to need that, you know,
But I mean there are versions of it. I mean,
there's a bone piece that's Neolithic that shows him carving
(28:50):
the phases of the moon, so at least he's understanding
something with a lunar calendar or something at that point.
But I mean we seem to operate in fairly. I mean,
let's see, the iceman has some pretty complex stuff on him.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Is his bow, the way his shoes were made, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
He did that presumably without knowing exactly what day, what
day of the month it was, or what month.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
Yeah, I think that part of this argument and part
of the necessity of time has changed with the evolution
of powel culture's work. Knowing when to plant and you know,
let's face it. It's agricultural and the weather is, as we
all know having lived in Colorado for some time, highly unpredictable.
(29:32):
So you know, if you could have a blizzard on
the on that day in April or May when you
typically you know, what's the old the old adages, you know,
never plant flowers before Mother's Day. But that doesn't mean
the day after Mother's Day you're not going to get
a twelve inch blizzard and you know all of your
all of your labors will have gone.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
To not that's right.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
And so I mean it's as a farmer you have
to work from some experience to say this is the
kind of season an I mean, that's why we had
farm as almanacs.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
But I mean it's another episode. There's really funny was
the straw hat riot, which was itself funny because that's
that's a calendar based thing. You know, you can't wear
your straw hat after labor Day and people did and
they had a riot over it. Right, But but I
mean that one of the things that they're talking about
that is that when do you when do you get
a shift to a straw hat? When is it? When
is it spring? And you know that's that's the point
(30:22):
that you can harvest strawberries. Those start harvesting earlier.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
And and you know they're arguing over you know, whether
whether you're measuring spring by the south or the north
or I mean, and so I mean this is like
a fight over when you have to switch from your
felt hat to your straw hat, and you need to
buy a new straw.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Hat every year.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
And this is all just stuff we make up.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
And important enough though that that people who wore their
hat on the wrong day literally caused a riot in
the streets because hat makers wanted you to buy new hats. Essentially,
it's where the where the hat comes. So you know,
again it goes back to how much of our culture
is designed around this this concept? How much and did
how how do we fabricate something as crazy as you know,
you wear straw hats now you wear felt hats then
(31:05):
based on the calendar, when for thousands of years we
didn't have a calendar that that mark sis things.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, that's hard to imagine that, like in a hunter
gatherer society. They they were like, all right, well, this
is when you put on your your this kind of
fur and if you if you put it on a
day earlier.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Well, well, and so so I think we can all
agree Bigfoot does not care what day of the week,
what day it is, right, Bigfoot presumably survives without having
a calendar.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
I having a good authority that he does not even
have an iPhone. So yes, that's now. Yeah, back to
the point that it was, you know that I want
to expand upon just a little bit. It's like, as
our world has has become more and more modern, and
then also my reference to the Nation of shopkeepers comment,
(31:55):
but imagine a modern society in which you don't know
which you're going to get interest paid on an account.
Quite a bit of the late twentieth century was us
finally putting together with a more or less you know,
unified view of time was able to be leveraged into
(32:17):
just in time supply chains, which was you know, the
one of the big you know, one of the big
business evolutions of the of the eighties and the nineties,
when people finally figured out that, okay, we have the
mechanisms that we can take our understanding of you know,
time down to the split second and make sure that
(32:40):
when our factory runs out of part A, that a
ship and then a plane or a truck arrives with
part A, hopefully a few hours before the last of
your previous part as have been have been thrown onto
the assembly line.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Scientific, in the scientific realm, you know, the oscillation of
atoms is well actually what makes the atomic clock work,
and so we've used that as a definition. So I
think that as society has become more and more advanced,
the necessity of having a unified concept of time and
(33:24):
one that everyone is able to easily understand. It's true
we could run on six or seven different calendars, but
the potential for confusion I think is just too high,
especially in a modern world where so much of the
world is operating on a on a justin time paradigm.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Because it still comes out of that same question, though,
is that do we is it required because we had it?
I mean, or would we have come up a different
way without it?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I mean that's so I mean that I.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Think I think intuitively we would say it would be
very difficult to do the complex stuff that we're doing
if everybody didn't agree on the date and everybody didn't
agree on the time. But on the other hand, you know,
we've we've found that people are able to do things
in strange conditions and do them very very well. You know,
we built we built Apollo with without you know, without
the computing power that we consider necessary today to you know,
(34:22):
buy our groceries and so so I don't know if
you buy your groceries.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I guess people don't on the computer. But you know
what I mean, they say so that, you know, necessity
is the mother.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Of invention or whatever is to say, would we have
simply built it all, managed to coordinate it all with
a different with a different vision, or is it absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Necessary to the to the operation of society.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I don't know, I mean I but I mean we're
wandering past here even counterfactual, and you're really wondering into
I mean, this a good science fiction story.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
What we never what if we never agreed on a calendar?
Speaker 1 (34:53):
It is interesting to think about on how that because
you know, was it. It does feel like in order
for us to have developed the way we did, even
from the point of I mean, if we're talking like
bronze age, that that that we had to come up
with not just you know this idea of this is
when the seasons change, but calendars, because banking really doesn't
(35:14):
work without without some idea of when you know, when
you're paying uh, when you're when you're doing interest in
stuff like like Brad mentioned. And if you if you
don't have you know, a pretty firm idea of how
that works, Uh, then then you don't have banks. And
if you don't have banks, and you can't start leveraging
the money that you need for you know, essentially polities
(35:34):
and then nations. And as we get to two larger, larger,
larger groups, I mean that's you know, can they function
if they don't?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Large complex civilizations operated off of Luter calendars. The Greeks
did they? That's true. That's true. I mean without without
us you know, carrying it around a calendar. Uh.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
And heck the Babylonians were using the uh, the sex
agastable system. Yeah, for quite a lot. We can't even
agree that we have ten digits and ten toes so
or that this is clearly the superior way to measure
everything is based ten when every once in all those
(36:14):
crazy people who decided, oh well, just count the number
of joints in your fingers and you come up with twelve. Therefore,
twelve is the most logical and most natural way to
sing and.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
You learned I mean, we learned to cap by tens,
but you would learn just as easily to cap by twenties.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
But that's also I mean we have, you know, the
historical way that that's all survived that you know, despite that,
we still have we have twenty four hour days and
sixty minute hours and that's all. That's all stuff that's
helping totally from completely different systems.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
And there's absolutely no reason you couldn't divide the hours
of the day into ten now or twenty or fifty
however you want to do it.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
I'm sure that would make the metric crowd happy.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Time.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Could you imagine having to waking up one day and
being like like, oh there's new time.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
We would have to teach all of our computers.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
And all of our Yeah, but I mean right, well,
and that's it. Yeah, that's code ends up relying on
some of the some of these ideas.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
That we have.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Well, I mean, why two K, which turned out not
to be that. It's still funny to me the Colorado
built a disaster bunker for y two K, But.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I mean why two K is a holy human manufactured device.
I mean that oh yeah, that two thousand years from
what was a totally you know, just throwing darts at
the board at some point and then.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
There was nothing difference between December thirty first, nineteen ninety nine, and.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Except that our computers were taught that they you know,
the safe space.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
We only used two digits, and the assumption that we
were never going to cross over into into any century
because we did.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Some wonder at some point someone said that's future, that's
some future person's problem.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
Yeah, and then it got there.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
So, I mean, here's a question.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So so whatever, there was the proposal of the International
Fixed Calendar, which was taken to the League of Nations,
and it was originally adopted by the League of Nations,
and it was eventually rejected by the League of Nations.
But that was the idea of moving to a more
scientific calendar that was not based in anybody's particular culture,
that wasn't based in anybody's particular faith. So what if
(38:17):
we in a world as a world that at the
turn of the twentieth century had moved to another calendar
and just everybody agreed, we're just going to use this now.
I mean that, you know, the obstacles to it were
all cultural, but I mean was there a point I mean,
like you're saying now, it would be hard to move
to a ten hour day as opposed to a twenty
four hour day. But I mean, was there a point
(38:38):
when we could have just waved our hands and said,
let's do this, right, I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
It feels like we could have it practically, doesn't feel
like it would be all that possible because I think
about the fact that they tried to, you know, change,
they tried to do this like this, We're not going
to do eighty eighty BC, We're just going to do
CEBC and BCE and this the idea, the idea that
that was just supposed to be that then then you
(39:02):
know it was it was outside of these religious conventions.
And the amount of just honestly vitriol and problems that
that has caused makes me think that if we were
trying to say, oh, we're doing this because it's not
going to be religious, you're gonna have every religious person
saying what the heck?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Well? I mean that was that was the problem with
with both the International fixed in the in the World calendar,
even though they both used weeks and you still live.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
I mean, so the concept there is because with what
the fixed calendar, every month is going to have thirty days, right,
and with the the world calendar, every quarter.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Is going to have three months of fixed days.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
But they but they both come off at least a
day off and two days off every four years, or
roughly every four years, except on the ones that are
divisible by four hundred, I mean, the.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Math is still the same. And that was the problem
is that you got this one extra day and that's
not in the week. And so how do you you know,
if you are supposed to, you know, worship the Lord
or wrecke the Lord once a week as a as
a you know, as a matter of thing, then how
do you know, what do you do about that one day?
Which it seems to me that we could say, how
about we just not worry about that one day, because
(40:08):
I mean, the Lord presumably had something to do with
how long it takes the earth and go around the sun,
right if you're if you're believing in that already. But
one of the things that that would have meant is
that you would have had, uh and it works differently
between the two calendars, but you would have had one
day a year that essentially wasn't in calendar essentially you
either you know, you skip the day or you have
(40:29):
two Sundays in a row or something like that. And
that day would have been an international holiday, and every
four years it would be two days of international holiday
that everybody agrees upon that we all share because it's
the nature of the calendar. Uh And and would that
how would that change the world if we had one
(40:49):
holiday that was not a religious based holiday, it was
when your daddy was born or anything like that. It
was it was it was that was that extra day.
I think one hadn't be in July and one had
it in January. But I mean, if we just had
one extra day, that's just like, you know, we've got
to have a calendar in order to get our stuff,
you know, where it needs to go. And that leaves
us this with this one day, and we're going to
use that one day to party? Would the world be?
(41:11):
Would be our?
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Or maybe you know, maybe what was the movie where
they have one day a year where everybody can commit
crime or something like that, that the.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Purge or whatever. You know, maybe maybe that's what we
do on that day. I don't know, is that a
day where there's no morality, that there's all morality. Is
that a day of giving thanks uh for for all
that we have? Or is that a day to argue
with your relatives? I don't know, but I mean, how
if we had that one day and we all agreed
upon it, would that change the world? Would that change
(41:37):
the way that we do world politics or world events? Well?
Speaker 1 (41:40):
And it does seem like there's a connection there. I mean,
that's a not to put you know, too much too
much on it, but it feels like, you know that
that that that would bring the world together a little
bit because it's just this idea that transcends our various
cultural differences. I think that sounds pretty cool as a
you know, as a kind of a symbolic as a
(42:02):
symbolic thing, but it is, it is, you know, And
if that's what we're talking about with the calendars, is
you know what that kind of stuff can mean to
you know, for not just you know what day it is,
but can mean beyond that. I mean, I think that's
the question of the Gregorian calendar and and all the
other ones, is besides the fact that we have to
or if we have to use them to measure time,
(42:23):
what do they what do they say beyond that? And
what could they say they you know, they.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Didn't and could you know, could it say here's a
here's a matter.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Because the way we do that now is we have
some months that are thirty days and some months that
are thirty one days, and then we had an extra
day in February that we don't do anything with a
leap day.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Right, there's no big party on leap Day.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
And it's funny because we will now there's a holiday
every single day of the week.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I mean, you know it's it's it's you know, ice
cream Sunday Day, right, I mean I did a whole
episode on that too. It's it talked like a pirate day.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Uh and and uh and I mean there's there's three
different times that uh uh, the Pulaski Day is celebrated
in America. There are three different dates where Pulaski Day
is celebrated. One on his birth, one on his death,
and one because it's just kind of convenient those days.
I mean those and you know, we we decided to
move all our holidays to make them three days weekends.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Right, So I mean, what is what is the meaning of.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Labor Day and Memorial Day When we've just said you know,
we're not even going to fix the day on that,
We're just gonna say it's always going to be a Monday,
so you get a three day weekend, you know, So
we're obviously able to be flexible on what we count.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
As a as a day. So wouldn't it be more
fun instead of instead of just you know, we've got
thirty one days this month and thirty days next month.
One day a year to even things up, then that's
that's party day.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
Yeah, I think that that would be uh, yeah, that's
an interesting that's an interesting alternate future. And you know,
what would that day represent the modern world, especially with
you know, some of the things that are going on currently.
You would hope that would be you know, perhaps an
international Day of Peace, or international Day of service, or an.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
International day of day of giving.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
Yeah, and unfortunately, hopefully.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
It wouldn't be an international day of war. During that day,
nothing counts and so shoot at each other.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Well, yeah, we can hope not. But you know that
actually bit at the segue. You know, sometimes the differences
in the calendars were genuine political and religious and political
religious hybrid conflict and the fact that the again the
(44:26):
English were distrustful of this entire crazy thing coming from
the pope.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
It well to other some other Protestant countries even more so,
I mean it took even more time to do. And
whether Sweden did something weird, whether they we're trying to
phase it in over time or or whatever. Newfoundland, who Newfoundland,
I don't want to pronounce that wrong that decided to
go one one half hour off one daylight.
Speaker 6 (44:50):
On the time zone they're at thirty one where you know,
I mean, so you know and or I mean, these
are all all these these weird conventions.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
But I mean the fact that we do these conventions.
You know that whatever Indiana can decide that they were
going to all be on on central time zone rather
than following the Times online and all that.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
The fact that we can do that shows that we
have the capacity to be uh well and think about
it this way too. I mean, if we if we
start treking up here, if we build a starship enterprise
and go floating off into space, right, our calendar is
totally based on the Earth rotating around the Sun, right,
So I mean, if we're parking on another planet, rotating
around another stars, you know, these days aren't going to
(45:32):
make When you look at that when you look at
the instruction, there's actually I found it. There's actually a
script instruction about how they do star dates in Star Trek,
and essentially they said is that this is nonsense.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Just make sure you're consistent through the whole episode. That's
what they said, because dates become nonsense when whenever you're
you're talking about, you know, going across at least multiple
solar systems, you know, multiple planets that are not all
rotating around the same sun. I mean, a calendar would
actually be kind of nonsense if you were on Mars, right,
because you're you know, it's it's it's a completely different
(46:02):
rotational cycle.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
And yet and in the in the sense of kind
of yeah, probably what we would end up doing is
trying to to you know, fit that somehow into the
system we already have.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
We would say, we would say, we would say Earth
is the pin and everything is done in relation to Earth,
and that might take off the Balkans or the Klingons.
Speaker 5 (46:27):
Yeah, yeah, well then you could have the uh yeah,
then you could have literal appreciation of in the year
of our Lord h in the year of the Earth,
you know, April fourth, twenty seven, twenty two henceforth known
as start eight whatever I'm making up, And I think
that that's uh. One of the things that is kind
(46:50):
of interesting with this topic, I think is that it
proves that we hairless monkeys, really we just can't leave
well enough and the love we want to discover and
we want to quantify all of the universal constants that
we can, and as we have developed through the years,
(47:13):
you know, from primitive civilizations all the way to you
know where we are now, just how you know, how
deeply we look into those things. And then again, hairless
monkeys being very irrational, how often does this turn to conflict?
How how often does this turn into.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
A big to do?
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Whereas a more rational perhaps some more rational species would
just relax and go with the flow. And you know,
there's a certain that.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
If we went with the flow, would we be a
more rational species? This is this the nature of the species?
Or is this the species adapting to the environment that
we've created?
Speaker 3 (47:52):
Yeah, because we can. I mean, you could also theoretically
live under the ocean or live you know, in a tunnel.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Or a cave where the seasons don't make any difference
at all, where the length of the day makes no
difference at all, and you could set I mean on
spaceship too. I suppose you could set on any rotational
cycle you want, right, you could. You could decide, you know,
however however you want to do. We don't have to
live on a twenty four hour day. We don't have
to live on it, you know.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
I mean, we're only doing that because that has to
do with it's beIN on the axis. But if you
can't see the sun spinning on.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
The axis, what do you care? So if if we
did an experiment, we put people under ground and said
this is going to be just an experiment for living underground,
but we don't tell them, but we start slowly shortening
their day, they would just adapt to it. Right, So
I mean, are we adapted to what we built? Or
do we built you know, something that is you know,
part of our nature. I couldn't quite find, I mean,
(48:44):
I really try to find. Is there any example of
like a true war, a battle thought over No it's Thursday, No,
it's Wednesday.
Speaker 6 (48:50):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
I couldn't really. I mean, for all the stuff we
fought over, I couldn't really fight anything that kind of
came down to, other than there being some cult arguments,
you know, with the Gregorian calendar and what that had
to do with Pope Gregray. But I couldn't come down
to us actually finding a conflict over us not agreeing
on the date.
Speaker 5 (49:10):
Yeah, I was unable to find anything like that. And yet,
knowing the background of some of the wars that have
started over history, I am sure that at one point
or another, especially during some period of history that's not
particularly well documented. And I'm thinking specifically, you know, early
(49:31):
Middle Ages, that there had to be a situation where
you know, tribe said, well, hey, we were expecting tribute
on Tuesday and try to be saying no, it's only Sunday.
And I can certainly see where, you know, the irrational
side of humanity that could cause certainly some conflict, and
(49:55):
it probably has caused at least one altercation or so. H.
I mean, it's possibly some fairly fairly.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Big cultures that use different calendars are somehow now stuck
onto the Gregorian calendar, you know, and there had to have.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Been some at least tension over that at some point. Yeah,
there is if if some other culture say, and this
is the in terms of a counterfactual, who say China
hit the you know, was the one that that found
the the industrial revolution or call you know, did the
colonizing and was running off of their calendar. Would they
(50:30):
would we have all just adapted to their calendar, would
they have found a calendar that was more like the
Gregorian one just naturally, or would they have you know,
run off of the calendar they had because that's the
calendar they had and the rest of us just needed
to figure it out. Because I mean, that's that's essentially
what happened with the Gregorian calendar is we all just said, ah,
you can have your own calendar, but they're gonna you know,
(50:51):
you're going to do all the business on our calendar,
so we don't really we're not going to learn yours.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Yeah, we're not going to pay attention to win the
Chinese New Year is because you know, yeah, yeah you can.
But I mean, but you know, you got to recognize
when ours is because everybody's got to know our calendar,
right So, and that's.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
And that's how our i mean, all our businesses and
business quarters and when the when the New Year starts,
I mean there's there's stuff beyond just the you know
the fact that that's the holiday New Year's Day.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
But there's there's also all these practical and the course
that's something that changed a lot over time. When when
the new year started, there used to be the idea
of archection. We was just talking about that the other
day too. But so so had we gone to like
a Chinese lunar calendar, which actually is able to count
days perfectly fine? You know, if we'd gone with an
Eastern calendar rather than with a Gregorian calendar, if that's
(51:38):
the one that kind of took over the world, you know,
was carried through I mean, would that change our culture?
Would our culture look more Eastern? Would we be more
likely to base our culture on Chinese thought than on
Western thought? You know there's people today who argue the
Western thought is you know, good or bad or whatever.
But I mean, you know, if we had chosen or
if we chosen a Hebrew calendar or or whatever other calendar,
(52:02):
I mean, are do we lean towards Western rationalism and
Western history and et cetera because of the calendar or
you know, the calendar is probably evidence that we have
leaned towards it.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
If we had chosen another calendar, might that be different?
Speaker 3 (52:18):
I could say from a history standpoint, if we were
to do something like just switch like they talked about
doing in whatever nineteen thirty nineteen thirty seven, I mean
already now because of the Gregorian calendar, when you say
something happened on this date, it didn't necessarily happen on
this date because you know, the calendars weren't necessarily matching anything,
you know, prior to when a country shifted to a
Gagorian calendar. I mean the point of the episode I
(52:39):
talk about saying nothing happened on whatever September fifth and
in England that year, I mean, but I mean there
were September fifth other places, right, So if you were
born on September fifth, it doesn't mean that you don't
have a birthday that year, right.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
So it's actually that is actually kind of funny that
that you could have been born on September fifth in Poland,
but that you know, in England that date didn't exist
and you were born on it.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
And what if you were born a year earlier on
September fifth, did you not get a birthday that year?
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Right? I mean you just count that year.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
We just we jumped over that one.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
When when is your birthday? Yeah? But I can say,
it's it's from a history perspective, it would be harder
to relate things if we decided to go to you know,
you know, a thirteen month calendar, which is a lot
of lunar calendars though, or stuff like that, to have
counted one way for a long period of time and
then make a switch, because how do you sync those up?
But I don't know how much does that really change history?
(53:35):
If it if you know, if I mean that once
Russia made the shift to the Gregorian calendar, which they
only did after the Reds took over, then it moved
the October Revolution into November. But I mean doesn't how
much does it make a difference that the October Revolution
occurred in November.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
Except that we call it?
Speaker 3 (53:55):
But it would history really be different when we really
care if we called it?
Speaker 5 (53:58):
Yeah? Yeah, to the back to the English example, George
Washington's birthday, because he was born before seventeen fifty, his yeah,
his birthday shifted, and so for a while they were
trying to figure out, Okay, so when do we celebrate
George Washington's birthday?
Speaker 1 (54:20):
When was his birthday? Actually? And that's you know, that's
to some extent it shows the kind of silliness. But
behind all of our you know, or whether how specific
we are with everything, is that it just kind of
reveals the absurdity of our of our attempts to to
to make everything work the way we want it to.
(54:42):
And if there's anything that seems to be, you know,
about us as humans, it seems to be that we
want to impose some kind of order. And I think
that you know, how and how and what kinds we
impose it differed depending on time period and this necessity
and culture and all that stuff, but ultimately we're always
(55:02):
trying to do something. We see a world and in
order to make it make sense to us, we want
to organize it in some way.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
And that incredibly.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Complex environmental ecosystems operate entirely without caring what day of
the week it is, right anything, I mean, they don't
that is an environmental ecosystem? Is this complex as a
spaceship or you know anything, you know, getting stuffed from
Amazon on time any that we're talking about, and you
have the plants. Somehow we're able just to figure out
bout how cold or warm it is, you know, don't
(55:34):
don't have.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
To know what what what day? That we could what
the month is.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
They don't know, they and they don't necessarily they're not
necessarily looking up at the stars.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
And even though they don't care about the stars.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
The way that we know when the equinoxes or the
or the solstice, you know, they they figure out roughly
around that when those times are based with information that
that we don't uh. And that's I mean, it's it's
amazing to think.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
And yet they bloom year after year, you know, Yeah,
and it.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
Ends and they sometimes at the wrong times.
Speaker 5 (56:02):
Yeah. I was going to say, however, you can get that,
you know, really long warm spell in January, the crocuses
start coming out and the next thing you know, old
man winter is back.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
So they Yeah, the tulips always get me is that
they hear here you'll have a nice day, and all
the tulips are like, boom, here we are. And then
for freezes every single one of us.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
I mentioned the Great White Blizzard that It turns out
that Whitman had published his poem about the first Uh,
the First Dandy Lion of Spring was particularly early spring,
warm spring that year, and it came out the day
that they had this huge blizzard hit in New York
and knock down on the power lines and freeze people,
and that his poems in the newspaper, going, ah, the
first delicate dandy lion of the spring, you know everybody
(56:45):
ten ft and yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
And that's it's and you know, maybe that's we. That
irony could not have existed except for our.
Speaker 4 (56:55):
Yeah, except that we, you know, we make this stuff up.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
You know, we decided to say.
Speaker 5 (56:59):
Yeah, anecdotally, you know, something that we were discussing earlier.
They actually have done some studies where they have isolated
people in very neutral environments. And I want to think
that one that I had heard is is that for
some odd reason, the humans would tend to synchronize on
(57:20):
a twenty five hour day as opposed to twenty four,
which of course led to multiple multiple observations that this
must be because of aliens. Clearly humans were seated.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Yeah, we came from a place that had a longer.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
Yeah, that's interesting, that's you know, I mean, that's an
interesting conversation.
Speaker 4 (57:43):
Aliens can always be an answer.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
That can always be an answer.
Speaker 4 (57:48):
Have we done that test on a big foot?
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Then? I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
Is his rhythm different than ours? And maybe that's because
either he or US are as.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Does big Foot sleep in?
Speaker 1 (58:03):
Does big Foot sleep in? Or does he get up
with the sun? Does he have an alarm? Does to
some days? Does he say I'm just gonna take another
five minutes.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
These are questions hits news. It's an important question, that
is to say, how close?
Speaker 2 (58:18):
Again though, I mean presumably bigfoots and you know, bears
and birds and beavers don't. They don't keep a calendar,
and yet they still well still.
Speaker 1 (58:29):
Go animals, animals migrate and they go into hibernation and
stuff that you know does actually require some amount of
being on time. Yeah, and they most keep track a
year somehow, right, I mean yeah, when they they've got
those cycles, I mean somehow they're they're making that happen.
How does the cicada know it's been sixteen years or whatever?
Speaker 2 (58:52):
Yeah, a good question.
Speaker 1 (58:54):
Someone might someone actually might be able to answer that.
I don't know if there's a scientist somewhere that knows
how the.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
How they click it off?
Speaker 3 (59:01):
There is they got the calendars and did Dugan's a
little hole on these gretch and stuff on the water.
Speaker 1 (59:05):
Maybe they're like the deer and they all just are
kind of waiting until half of them have decided. Half
of them look around. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (59:13):
All right, Bob's crawling out of his burrow. I guess
I'll go.
Speaker 1 (59:16):
I guess it's time. Maybe there's just one of them
that's in charge of watching the calendar, and so as
they just wait for that one to come out and
they're like, all right, okay, now it's time. And if
that one messes up there, it's everything is everything is ruined.
Speaker 5 (59:33):
Yeah. Now, I do like the idea of international calendar.
Perhaps that day, the bonus day that we get that
can be Groundhog Day, where we can celebrate another highly
unreliable holiday to predict what the weather is going to
be like over the next six weeks while in the background,
(59:55):
here hold my beer and other comments similar are being made.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
I would be interested in the just to hear what
people think, like in the comments put down. If we
had that international day that we using the to one
day a year that was you know, in between, because
we got to an a calendar, what what would the
world do?
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
How would we celebrate that day?
Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
I think it would be interesting to hear some some
of the very philosophies of how we should do that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Thank you for listening to this episode of The History
Guy podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode of counterfactual history,
and if you did, you can find lots more history
if you follow the History Guy on YouTube. You can
also find us at the historyguy dot com, Facebook, Patreon,
and locals. If you want to hear more counterfactuals, stay tuned.
We release podcasts every two weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
I do