WEBVTT - When Christmas Was Illegal, and Why 2016 Will Be One Second Longer

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to How Stuff Works. Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,

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<v Speaker 1>a researcher and writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every

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<v Speaker 1>week I'm bringing you three stories from our team about

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<v Speaker 1>the weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology,

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<v Speaker 1>and culture. Except when I know this week we've got

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<v Speaker 1>to because holiday production scheduling is hilarious. One of them

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<v Speaker 1>is something of a p s A. If you want

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<v Speaker 1>six to be over as quickly as possible, I've got

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<v Speaker 1>bad news. Beyond feeling longer, it's going to literally be

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<v Speaker 1>longer than most years. But first, I've got a historical

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<v Speaker 1>story for you, with thanks to our freelance writer John Donovan.

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<v Speaker 1>Here in the United States, Christmas is a national holiday,

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<v Speaker 1>and with the holiday season in full aggressive swing, it's

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<v Speaker 1>easy to imagine that it's always been this way. But

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<v Speaker 1>for hundreds of years, the Puritans actually said bah humbug

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<v Speaker 1>to Christmas. When the maf Or landed at what is

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<v Speaker 1>now Cape Cod, Massachusetts in sixteen twenty, the pilgrims brought

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<v Speaker 1>more than just literal baggage. They were aiming, of course,

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<v Speaker 1>to establish a new way of life in the New World.

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<v Speaker 1>One thing the Puritans wanted to leave behind. Christmas. In England,

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<v Speaker 1>as in much of Europe, Christmas was rife with unbridled partying.

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<v Speaker 1>The harvests were over, the cattle were slaughtered so they

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<v Speaker 1>wouldn't need to be fed throughout the winter. That made

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<v Speaker 1>fresh meat and fresh booze plentiful, as well as the

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<v Speaker 1>time to eat, drink and carry on. Puritans didn't buy

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<v Speaker 1>into the idea of Christmas. The Bible notes no date

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<v Speaker 1>for Jesus birth. In the Puritan mind, therefore, there was

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<v Speaker 1>nothing to celebrate. According to Dr Penny Ristad, author of

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<v Speaker 1>Christmas in America, a History, the Christmas season in England

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<v Speaker 1>had become a time of excess feasting, gambling, in general debauchery.

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<v Speaker 1>The Puritans saw it as exemplifying the decline of their

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<v Speaker 1>values in English society, so choosing not to celebrate was

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<v Speaker 1>a way for them to stand firm against what they

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<v Speaker 1>considered a decay of civilization they were so serious about

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<v Speaker 1>treating December twenty five is just another day that everyone

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<v Speaker 1>on the Mayflower, some of whom mind were not Puritans,

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<v Speaker 1>worked on the first Christmas Day that they spent in America.

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<v Speaker 1>The non Puritans in the bunch were not as keen

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<v Speaker 1>on the ban on Christmas, rastad says it wasn't long

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<v Speaker 1>before they started acting out, refusing to work and taking

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<v Speaker 1>to the streets to play games and generally frolic. William Bradford,

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<v Speaker 1>an English separatist and early governor of Plymouth Colony, didn't

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<v Speaker 1>penalize anyone for it, but he did tell them to

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<v Speaker 1>take all that foul partying indoors on the idea that

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<v Speaker 1>it said a bad tone. Not all of America was

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<v Speaker 1>so against the idea of celebrating Christmas, though settlements in

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<v Speaker 1>the southern part of America, like the one in Jamestown, Virginia,

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<v Speaker 1>let loose, but the Puritans kept a stranglehold on fun

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<v Speaker 1>in New England, even if the band was never completely successful.

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<v Speaker 1>According to Stephen Nissenbaum, the author of The Battle for Christmas,

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<v Speaker 1>maritime communities hosting fishermen and sailors like marble Head were

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<v Speaker 1>steadfast about keeping their Christmas traditions and other English folk practices,

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<v Speaker 1>and drinking in sex habits. The Puritan population considered these

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<v Speaker 1>communities to be made up of encourageable sinners and would

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<v Speaker 1>maintain their disdain for Christmas for decades. Though there was

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<v Speaker 1>a similar movement. In England, for a while, Christmas was

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<v Speaker 1>outlawed with an Act of Parliament in sixteen forty four

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<v Speaker 1>that was enforced by political and military leader Oliver Cromwell.

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<v Speaker 1>In America, things became so stringent that between sixteen fifty

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<v Speaker 1>nine and sixteen eighty one, anyone in Boston caught celebrating

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<v Speaker 1>Christmas was subject to a five shilling fine. A changing society, though,

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<v Speaker 1>would not be denied. Here's a passage from Christmas in America.

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<v Speaker 1>A history in the end. Whether slowly in New England

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<v Speaker 1>or more rapidly in the Middle Colonies and the South,

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<v Speaker 1>the forces of pluralism and the need for social harmony

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<v Speaker 1>shaped and encouraged Christmas celebration, Yet its status as a

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<v Speaker 1>holiday remained haphazard and varied widely. It would take the

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<v Speaker 1>project of nation building in the wake of the Revolution

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<v Speaker 1>to begin to define an American conception of Christmas. Even

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<v Speaker 1>after the colonies united and became a nation, years passed

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<v Speaker 1>before Christmas became the holiday we know it as today.

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<v Speaker 1>Congress was in session on Christmas Day in seventeen eighty nine,

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<v Speaker 1>the year after the Constitution was ratified. The Senate worked

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<v Speaker 1>on Christmas Day in seventeen ninety seven, and the House

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<v Speaker 1>met on Christmas Day in eighteen o two. Christmas wouldn't

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<v Speaker 1>begin to take its present form until later in the

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<v Speaker 1>nineteenth century. Different religions and denominations, Protestants and Catholics among them,

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<v Speaker 1>emerged in America, and they held Christmas as both a

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<v Speaker 1>holy day and a day of celebration. The Puritans noticed

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<v Speaker 1>and started to move away from their insistence on their

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<v Speaker 1>neighbors conforming to their own way of thinking. People of

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<v Speaker 1>different religions formed local governments, and trade between various networks

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<v Speaker 1>helped calm the antipapies between the factions. As the New

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<v Speaker 1>World prospered and a middle class was born, the idea

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<v Speaker 1>of giving and receiving Christmas gifts took hold. An emphasis

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<v Speaker 1>on home and family followed away from the frolicking in

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<v Speaker 1>the streets and the mail centered celebrations involving drinking, feasting,

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<v Speaker 1>and sex. Finally, in eighteen seventy, two hundred and fifty

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<v Speaker 1>years after Puritans landed at Plymouth and put the queeze

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<v Speaker 1>on the idea of Christmas as a celebration, the US

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<v Speaker 1>declared Christmas and national holiday. Ever since, celebrations big and

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<v Speaker 1>small secular and non secular marked the day, and finally,

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<v Speaker 1>this week, Stuff editor Christopher Hassiotis and freelance writer Patrick J.

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<v Speaker 1>Keiger explain why is a long year technically long just

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<v Speaker 1>by an extra second. I hope my teaser at the

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<v Speaker 1>top wasn't too click beatty, listen, beatty, take it away, Christopher.

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<v Speaker 1>There's a lot to say goodbye to as two thousand

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<v Speaker 1>sixteen comes to a close. The deaths of great artists,

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<v Speaker 1>countless global tragedies, an acrimonious US presidential campaign, and many

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<v Speaker 1>other events have made many of us eager to get

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<v Speaker 1>the seemingly interminable mastiness over with once and for all.

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<v Speaker 1>But thanks to the precision of modern timekeeping, we'll have

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<v Speaker 1>to wait one additional second on New Year's Eve before

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<v Speaker 1>we can welcome a hopefully better two thousand seven teen.

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<v Speaker 1>The additional unit of time, known as a leap second,

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<v Speaker 1>gets officially inserted precisely one second before midnight strikes on Saturday,

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<v Speaker 1>December thirty one at England's Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Since

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<v Speaker 1>eighty four, that's been the location of the prime meridian

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<v Speaker 1>for Greenwich meantime, also known as coordinated Universal time and

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<v Speaker 1>that's what sets the standard for the rest of the

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<v Speaker 1>world's time zones. So why is this really necessary. Well,

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<v Speaker 1>for most of history, people use the Earth itself as

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<v Speaker 1>a giant clock under the assumption that it always rotated

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<v Speaker 1>at the same precise speed, and we were unaware of

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<v Speaker 1>the accompanying global wobble we now know about. But with

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<v Speaker 1>a development in the nineteen forties of the first atomic clock,

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<v Speaker 1>which used the vibration of the caesium atom to measure

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<v Speaker 1>units of time very very very very precisely, it became

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<v Speaker 1>apparent that Earth isn't all that dependable of a clock

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<v Speaker 1>when you're talking millions and billions of years. That's because

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<v Speaker 1>the planet's rotation is very very very slowly decreasing by

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<v Speaker 1>about point zero zero two seconds per day. That means

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<v Speaker 1>that every eighteen months or so, Earth loses about one

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<v Speaker 1>second of time. On the other hand, atomic clocks like

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<v Speaker 1>the ones we've been using, typically lose about a billionth

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<v Speaker 1>of one second per day. That discrepancy between atomic clocks

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<v Speaker 1>and the Earth results in some complications, minor as they

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<v Speaker 1>may be, because we still use our planet's rotation as

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<v Speaker 1>the basis for the calendar. To compensate for the slight

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<v Speaker 1>irregularity between systems. A United Nations agency called the International

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<v Speaker 1>Telecommunications Union adds one single second to Coordinated Universal Time

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<v Speaker 1>every so often, just to even things out and make

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<v Speaker 1>sure we're still okay. Think of this as a miniature,

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<v Speaker 1>miniature version of why we add a twenty ninth day

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<v Speaker 1>to February every four years. In fact, this isn't the

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<v Speaker 1>first time a so called leap second has been added

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<v Speaker 1>to a year. We've done so twenty seven times ever

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<v Speaker 1>since nineteen although we always do it on either a

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<v Speaker 1>June December thirty one. And if you're already planning to

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<v Speaker 1>be that person at the party who's a know it

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<v Speaker 1>all insisting on ushering in two thousand seventeen by counting

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<v Speaker 1>down ten nine, eight, seven, six, five, four three two

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<v Speaker 1>one extra one, Hey, now not so fast. The extra

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<v Speaker 1>second shows up right before midnight only in the time

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<v Speaker 1>zone home to Greenwich. That means, if you're celebrating on

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<v Speaker 1>Eastern Standard Time in the United States, for instance, that

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<v Speaker 1>extra second gets added right US PM is about to

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<v Speaker 1>take over to seven PM. Planning to party in say

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<v Speaker 1>South Korea instead, that means your extra second gets added

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<v Speaker 1>right before nine am on New Year's day so you

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<v Speaker 1>can come into work a little late. That's our show

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<v Speaker 1>for this week. Thank you so much for tuning in,

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<v Speaker 1>and hey, happy holidays, whatever and however you celebrate from

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<v Speaker 1>our family to yours. Part of that family I should

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<v Speaker 1>mention is our audio producer, Dylan Fagan and our editorial

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<v Speaker 1>liaise On Alison Ludermilk. Subscribed to now now for more

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<v Speaker 1>of the latest science news and this links to anything

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<v Speaker 1>you'd like to hear his cover plus the name of

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<v Speaker 1>your favorite holiday related movie or TV episode. Mine is

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<v Speaker 1>die Hard. You can send us an email at now

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<v Speaker 1>podcast at how stuff works dot com, and of course

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<v Speaker 1>for lots more stories like these, head on overy to

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<v Speaker 1>our home planet now dot how stuff works dot com