----- Calendrical issues ----- As mentioned in Theory.html, although calendrical issues are out of scope for tzdb, they indicate the sort of problems that we would run into if we extended tzdb further into the past. The following information and sources go beyond Theory.html's brief discussion. They sometimes disagree. France Gregorian calendar adopted 1582-12-20. French Revolutionary calendar used 1793-11-24 through 1805-12-31, and (in Paris only) 1871-05-06 through 1871-05-23. Russia From Chris Carrier (1996-12-02): On 1929-10-01 the Soviet Union instituted an "Eternal Calendar" with 30-day months plus 5 holidays, with a 5-day week. On 1931-12-01 it changed to a 6-day week; in 1934 it reverted to the Gregorian calendar while retaining the 6-day week; on 1940-06-27 it reverted to the 7-day week. With the 6-day week the usual days off were the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of the month. (Source: Evitiar Zerubavel, _The Seven Day Circle_) Mark Brader reported a similar story in "The Book of Calendars", edited by Frank Parise (1982, Facts on File, ISBN 0-8719-6467-8), page 377. But: From: Petteri Sulonen (via Usenet) Date: 14 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT ... If your source is correct, how come documents between 1929 and 1940 were still dated using the conventional, Gregorian calendar? I can post a scan of a document dated December 1, 1934, signed by Yenukidze, the secretary, on behalf of Kalinin, the President of the Executive Committee of the Supreme Soviet, if you like. Sweden (and Finland) From: Mark Brader Subject: Re: Gregorian reform - a part of locale? Date: 1996-07-06 In 1700, Denmark made the transition from Julian to Gregorian. Sweden decided to *start* a transition in 1700 as well, but rather than have one of those unsightly calendar gaps :-), they simply decreed that the next leap year after 1696 would be in 1744 - putting the whole country on a calendar different from both Julian and Gregorian for a period of 40 years. However, in 1704 something went wrong and the plan was not carried through; they did, after all, have a leap year that year. And one in 1708. In 1712 they gave it up and went back to Julian, putting 30 days in February that year!... Then in 1753, Sweden made the transition to Gregorian in the usual manner, getting there only 13 years behind the original schedule. (A previous posting of this story was challenged, and Swedish readers produced the following references to support it: "Tideräkning och historia" by Natanael Beckman (1924) and "Tid, en bok om tideräkning och kalenderväsen" by Lars-Olof Lodén (1968). Grotefend's data From: "Michael Palmer" [with one obvious typo fixed] Subject: Re: Gregorian Calendar (was Re: Another FHC related question Newsgroups: soc.genealogy.german Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 02:32:48 -800 ... The following is a(n incomplete) listing, arranged chronologically, of European states, with the date they converted from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar: 04/15 Oct 1582 - Italy (with exceptions), Spain, Portugal, Poland (Roman Catholics and Danzig only) 09/20 Dec 1582 - France, Lorraine 21 Dec 1582/ 01 Jan 1583 - Holland, Brabant, Flanders, Hennegau 10/21 Feb 1583 - bishopric of Liege (Lüttich) 13/24 Feb 1583 - bishopric of Augsburg 04/15 Oct 1583 - electorate of Trier 05/16 Oct 1583 - Bavaria, bishoprics of Freising, Eichstedt, Regensburg, Salzburg, Brixen 13/24 Oct 1583 - Austrian Oberelsaß and Breisgau 20/31 Oct 1583 - bishopric of Basel 02/13 Nov 1583 - duchy of Jülich-Berg 02/13 Nov 1583 - electorate and city of Köln 04/15 Nov 1583 - bishopric of Würzburg 11/22 Nov 1583 - electorate of Mainz 16/27 Nov 1583 - bishopric of Strassburg and the margraviate of Baden 17/28 Nov 1583 - bishopric of Münster and duchy of Cleve 14/25 Dec 1583 - Steiermark 06/17 Jan 1584 - Austria and Bohemia 11/22 Jan 1584 - Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Zug, Freiburg, Solothurn 12/23 Jan 1584 - Silesia and the Lausitz 22 Jan/ 02 Feb 1584 - Hungary (legally on 21 Oct 1587) Jun 1584 - Unterwalden 01/12 Jul 1584 - duchy of Westfalen 16/27 Jun 1585 - bishopric of Paderborn 14/25 Dec 1590 - Transylvania 22 Aug/ 02 Sep 1612 - duchy of Prussia 13/24 Dec 1614 - Pfalz-Neuburg 1617 - duchy of Kurland (reverted to the Julian calendar in 1796) 1624 - bishopric of Osnabrück 1630 - bishopric of Minden 15/26 Mar 1631 - bishopric of Hildesheim 1655 - Kanton Wallis 05/16 Feb 1682 - city of Strassburg 18 Feb/ 01 Mar 1700 - Protestant Germany (including Swedish possessions in Germany), Denmark, Norway 30 Jun/ 12 Jul 1700 - Gelderland, Zutphen 10 Nov/ 12 Dec 1700 - Utrecht, Overijssel 31 Dec 1700/ 12 Jan 1701 - Friesland, Groningen, Zürich, Bern, Basel, Geneva, Turgau, and Schaffhausen 1724 - Glarus, Appenzell, and the city of St. Gallen 01 Jan 1750 - Pisa and Florence 02/14 Sep 1752 - Great Britain 17 Feb/ 01 Mar 1753 - Sweden 1760-1812 - Graubünden The Russian empire (including Finland and the Baltic states) did not convert to the Gregorian calendar until the Soviet revolution of 1917. Source: H. Grotefend, _Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit_, herausgegeben von Dr. O. Grotefend (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1941), pp. 26-28. ----- This file is in the public domain, so clarified as of 2009-05-17 by Arthur David Olson. ----- Local Variables: coding: utf-8 End: