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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so

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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. We are recording this on July

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Speaker 1: thirty first, which is a Thursday. And July and the

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Speaker 1: concept of Thursdays are just things that got made up

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Speaker 1: at some point.

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Speaker 2: It's true. It's sort of like money. We just agree

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Speaker 2: that it makes sense. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Oh, and that's a good story for both this show

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Speaker 1: and stuff they don't want you to know our sister podcast,

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Speaker 1: Let's welcome to the stage. Of course, big thanks to

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Speaker 1: our super producer mister Max Williams, as well as the

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Speaker 1: one and only mister Noel Brown.

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Speaker 2: It's about time. I get it. It is about time.

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Speaker 3: I was just making a poorly placed time reference because that's.

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Speaker 2: What we're talking about. The timing was great.

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Speaker 1: They called me Ben Bullen and folks, as you may

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Speaker 1: tell from today's banter at the top. Uh, we looked

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Speaker 1: around and we had the conversation many months ago. Uh

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Speaker 1: that that kind of sprang out of earlier conversations on

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Speaker 1: different shows. The calendar. Why why is it a thing?

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Speaker 1: It's imperfect? We looked at it in a leap Yer

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Speaker 1: episode previously leaps here.

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Speaker 2: Still can't wrap my head around the.

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Speaker 1: Right exactly if you say so max, if you say approximately.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, approximate.

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Speaker 2: I know.

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Speaker 4: I told you a lot, Noel and your I still

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Speaker 4: don't get them, Like yeah, I'm just gonna keep saying

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Speaker 4: it that way just to compound the issue.

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Speaker 1: Approximate, because look, the calendar, like liked all the attempts

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Speaker 1: to map Earth on a two dimensional surface, like the

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Speaker 1: Mercader projection and everything. The calendar is an approximation for

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Speaker 1: human convenience. I think that's the best way to put it.

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Speaker 3: It's a functional one, though, because I think we all

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Speaker 3: do agree or accept the need to have some kind

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Speaker 3: of continuity in terms of measuring time, you know, just

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Speaker 3: for like keeping appointments and stuff like catching trains.

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Speaker 1: Right right, for civilization to exist, we have to agree

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Speaker 1: on some things, even if we all know they are

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Speaker 1: arbitrary things. That's the reason why you're never going to

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Speaker 1: be in a conversation and say, you know, well, Ambassador,

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Speaker 1: we said we would have the plan by Wednesday. You're

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Speaker 1: never going to hear the ambassador say I fundamentally reject

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Speaker 1: your concept of Wednesday.

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Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, And it also called back to an episode

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Speaker 3: we did in the not too distant past about weights

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Speaker 3: and measures.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, oh, that one got so weird so quickly.

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Speaker 1: No matter who you are, where you're at in life,

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Speaker 1: or where you're at on the planet, you're going to

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Speaker 1: have the same day as everyone else. The sun is

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Speaker 1: going to rise, it's going to set the evening. We've

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Speaker 1: got a cycle for this. Ancient history has figured out

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Speaker 1: the passage of the heavens to a great degree, and

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Speaker 1: we have to know how to measure business, domestic and

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Speaker 1: agricultural affairs. The calendar helps us coordinate. That's probably the

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Speaker 1: most important part of the thing, for sure.

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Speaker 3: And like many things in history, the version of all

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Speaker 3: of this that ends up having the most stickiness usually

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Speaker 3: results from some sort of powerful entity, your political figure, ruler,

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Speaker 3: godlike character, who in a burst of humility, named the

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Speaker 3: thing after themselves.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, way to go, greg The first practical calendar

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Speaker 1: that we know about came from Egyptian civilization, and the

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Speaker 1: Romans came back and developed that into the Julian calendar,

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Speaker 1: and that was around Western Europe for a long long time,

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Speaker 1: like fifteen hundred years or so, and then the Gregorian

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Speaker 1: calendar is an improvement upon that, and ever since the

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Speaker 1: rollout and adoption of the Gregorian calendar that became the

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Speaker 1: gold standard, is the best way to put it. Other

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Speaker 1: calendars exist, which will probably explore in a future episode,

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Speaker 1: but this one, for one reason or another, became the

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Speaker 1: calendar that all the world, with all its many differences,

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Speaker 1: agreed to hold, right, we all agreed to practice this one.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean, you know, to your point bent.

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Speaker 3: Other calendars might do a better job of tracking the

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Speaker 3: movement of celestial bodies, but the one that gets agreed

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Speaker 3: upon is important because of the very fact that it

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Speaker 3: is the one that gets agreed upon right widely. So

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Speaker 3: not necessarily the most accurate, quote unquote one, but it

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Speaker 3: is kind of the one that most folks landed on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, with or without their own consent.

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Speaker 1: Right when you get born in a modern hospital, your

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Speaker 1: parents don't get a worksheet that allows them to check

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Speaker 1: which calendar is the one that applies to you. You

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Speaker 1: can't have opten things like calendars specializing in the cycles

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Speaker 1: of the moon. That's very important in several religious and

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Speaker 1: spiritual belief systems. Before we get to the whole calendar,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about this before we have to look into

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Speaker 1: how measuring time became a thing, because you know, I

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Speaker 1: always thought about it. It's so strange that the full

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Speaker 1: week everybody practices is seven days. Why isn't it five?

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Speaker 1: Why isn't it ted right? Why isn't something you could

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Speaker 1: easily count on one or both hands?

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Speaker 5: Lucky number seven? I'll be I. Yeah, maybe he knows

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Speaker 5: that seven is the best number. I hope that's how

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Speaker 5: the meeting went.

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Speaker 1: I hope a bunch of agent Boffin's got together and

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Speaker 1: they said, okay, we've got to figure out what time

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Speaker 1: it is. And they eventually said, okay, now we have

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Speaker 1: to figure out days.

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Speaker 3: What's a good I love that David Fincher Murder movie.

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Speaker 2: We'll name it after that, right exactly? Yes? Uh.

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Speaker 1: The basic unit of computation in a there is, of course,

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Speaker 1: the day. Days are currently measured from midnight to midnight.

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Speaker 1: This obviously wasn't always the case. From about the second

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Speaker 1: century CE until all the way up to nineteen twenty five,

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Speaker 1: days were counted from noon to noon instead of midnight

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Speaker 1: to midnight.

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Speaker 3: Right, And if we're going a little bit more primitive,

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Speaker 3: they tribal folks, indigenous folks measured from dawn to dawn

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Speaker 3: because they were much more mourning people apparently.

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Speaker 1: And later Babylonian civilization practicers of Judaism. People in Greek civilization,

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Speaker 1: they would count a day from sunset to sunset, and

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Speaker 1: then if you go to Hindu civilization or the Egyptians,

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Speaker 1: they would say the day begins at dawn. And then

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Speaker 1: if you went over to the Romans, they would say,

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Speaker 1: you guys are crazy. The day obviously starts at midnight.

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Speaker 3: Not to mention the Tutons, whoever the hell they were.

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Speaker 3: They are apparently a people who lived in the fourth

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Speaker 3: century BC and fought the Romans in France.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, which is where we get the phrase Teutonic

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So they counted by knights and

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Speaker 1: for a lot of us, the most a lot of

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Speaker 1: us here in the US know about the Teutons is

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Speaker 1: that they're the reason we group fourteen days into something

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Speaker 1: called a fortnite.

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Speaker 3: Quick question, pop cultural question. Why is Fortnite called Fortnite?

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Speaker 3: What does it have to do with anything to do

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Speaker 3: with a Fortnite the game?

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Speaker 1: They want you to play it for more than two.

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Speaker 2: Weeks in in one sitting.

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Speaker 3: Perhaps, Yes, it's also a bit of a play on words,

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Speaker 3: because I believe it involves fortifying yourself into a bit

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Speaker 3: of a.

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Speaker 1: Fort, making a fort at night, I guess little. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: who were we to say? Wildly popular? Who are we

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Speaker 1: to say about this wildly popular game? If it sticks

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Speaker 1: around long enough, we can do an episode of ridiculous

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Speaker 1: history about it.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Another thing that baffles a lot of people, or it's

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Speaker 1: something we've all accepted as normal, is the division of

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Speaker 1: hours in the day. So we have twenty four seasonal

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Speaker 1: hours in every day. Twelve of those hours are largely

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Speaker 1: considered the daytime hours. Twelve are darkness hours, and that

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Speaker 1: gets hilariously incorrect when you live at the poles right,

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Speaker 1: or you live in an extreme northern or southern part

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Speaker 1: of the world where the sun can stay up, you know,

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Speaker 1: for days and days at a time.

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Speaker 3: And this tended to be the practice of the Sumerians,

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Speaker 3: the ancient Greeks, and the Babylonians, as well as the Egyptians,

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Speaker 3: passing on to the Romans and all of Western civilization

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Speaker 3: as we know it. Christendom, which is a term that

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Speaker 3: I love throwing around. It's got a nice mouth feel

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Speaker 3: to it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and Christendom had its own canonical system of hours

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Speaker 1: for daily worship. They had seven, being the church or

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Speaker 1: the you know, society part of Echelon's society governed by

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Speaker 1: the church. Yeah, the decision makers in the church said,

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Speaker 1: we got our own hours. There are seven of these,

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Speaker 1: and they're you know, they're according to a prayer schedule, right,

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Speaker 1: daily worship. But in secular affairs getting along with people

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Speaker 1: outside of that rarefied air, everyone started agree and you

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Speaker 1: needed twenty four hours in a day.

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Speaker 2: That's how we're going to count it. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: If that seven hour day thing doesn't compute to you,

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Speaker 3: it's for good reason.

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Speaker 2: It didn't really last. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You know, we've all we've all heard some phrases that

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Speaker 1: come from that, like vespers.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, I don't know about that.

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Speaker 1: Tell me, well, vespers is one of those seven hours

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Speaker 1: that christiandom would have had as the canonical daily worship.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think, not to make us sound like dirt bags,

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Speaker 1: but I think we both associated with a cocktail instead.

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Speaker 2: Yep.

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Speaker 3: I was just about to say, I just know it

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Speaker 3: is the Martini preference of James Theodore Bond.

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Speaker 1: What's the difference is of So a vesper is a

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Speaker 1: kind of Martini, right, it's.

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Speaker 2: A kind of Martini.

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Speaker 3: It involves the apartif lelais, which is like a fortified wine,

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Speaker 3: I believe, and a lemon.

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Speaker 1: Twist fortified wine. I think that's right, Okay, I just

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Speaker 1: I often associate fortified wine with things like the not

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Speaker 1: great wines of the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I'm wrong about that. It is just considered

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Speaker 2: a French apartif.

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Speaker 4: Jumping in here real quick. I love telling stories about

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Speaker 4: fortified wines because in many ways a fortified wine could

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Speaker 4: be really good or really bad. Like often the history

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Speaker 4: behind them was England and France would be at war,

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Speaker 4: so England was either wine from Portugal, but they hated

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Speaker 4: port wine so much that they would fortify in like

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Speaker 4: old brandy barrels. But you could have really good and

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Speaker 4: really bad port wines. They're often a dessert wine.

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Speaker 2: You have a little life. Yeah. Lay is a fortified

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Speaker 2: wine of a sort.

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Speaker 3: It's aged in oak barrels, and it is a blend

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Speaker 3: of Bordeaux wines.

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Speaker 1: I love a blend. I just like saying I love

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Speaker 1: a blend.

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Speaker 2: I don't know a good blend, do you? Guys like

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Speaker 2: a blend?

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Speaker 3: Sometimes blends are trash though, like the they sell it

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Speaker 3: trader Joe's the what is it? The Tuo buck Chuck,

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Speaker 3: I believe is a notoriously awful blend.

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Speaker 4: Well, I mean you have like stuff like marriages, which

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Speaker 4: is a term often used in talking about rye and stuff,

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Speaker 4: married two girls. But you can't do a marriage with bourbon,

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Speaker 4: because once it's in the barrel, it's in the barrel.

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Speaker 4: You can only add water.

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Speaker 1: I just love a say and I love a blend.

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Speaker 1: But we should get into the history of fortified God.

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Speaker 1: That is going to come back to haunt us. I

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Speaker 1: swear one of us is going to prank the other

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Speaker 1: one with that later. I don't know if it'll be

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Speaker 1: on air or in real life, and I don't know

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Speaker 1: what day it will occur on, but I know it'll

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Speaker 1: be one of seven days, because that's what we've been doing.

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Speaker 2: For a while.

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Speaker 1: And do you ever think about again, just how weird

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Speaker 1: it is not only that there are seven days instead

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Speaker 1: of five or ten in a week, but also the

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Speaker 1: names that we gave them.

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Speaker 2: I mean, at least they all talk about a blend.

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Speaker 2: Talking about a blend. We'll kick it to us.

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Speaker 1: Where did these come from?

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Speaker 3: Well, they were named after the planets of Hellenistic astrology

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Speaker 3: in the order of Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus,

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Speaker 3: and Saturn. The Romance language is preserved the Latin translations

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Speaker 3: of those, except to the blend point of Sunday, which

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Speaker 3: was replaced by Dominicus, which is the Lord's day, and

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Speaker 3: of course also Saturday, which was named for the Sabbath.

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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, and our research and associate Jeff here

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Speaker 1: indicated that he wanted to stick with the English names

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Speaker 1: at the beginning when we learn more about the days

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Speaker 1: of the week, right, we do have to mention that

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Speaker 1: most of the Romance languages are still latin Esque and

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Speaker 1: based on those Roman gods and based on you know,

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Speaker 1: therefore some of the astrology that you had just mentioned earlier, Noel.

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Speaker 1: But like you were saying, Nol, we have to remember

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Speaker 1: that a lot of these names have earlier forms. As

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Speaker 1: a matter of fact, all of them have earlier forms

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Speaker 1: based on astrology, religion, and deification of various entities. The

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Speaker 1: Germanic people got into this system by substituting German deities

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Speaker 1: for Roman ones, with the exception of Saturday. And this

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Speaker 1: this kind of religious secretism happened often enough that it

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Speaker 1: has a phrase interpretatio Germanica cool.

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Speaker 2: Or Germanic interpretation. Right.

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Speaker 3: Uh, so why don't we go through yeah, one at

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Speaker 3: a time. These are the days of the week. Uh, Sunday,

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Speaker 3: which is always blows my mind. Uh, maybe not blows

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Speaker 3: my mind, but I'm always have to remind myself that

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Speaker 3: it's technically the first day of the week.

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Speaker 1: It always feels like the end. Yeah, right, exactly because

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Speaker 1: out in the Middle East, you know, Uh, in other

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Speaker 1: parts of the world, the weekend will differ, or what

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Speaker 1: that two day period is will differ.

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Speaker 4: Working in restaurants for super long uh. A lot of

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Speaker 4: Hispanic uh Hispanic people, Sunday is the last day of

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Speaker 4: the week. So you used to looking at calendars or

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Speaker 4: Monday as it's starting. Like at our at our job,

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Speaker 4: we at one point try to change the front of

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Speaker 4: house schedule to being Monday through Sunday, and everyone got

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Speaker 4: so mad at us about it. But it's like, I like,

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Speaker 4: like it was annoying because we had one schedule it

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Speaker 4: was Monday through Sunday, and we had other schedules Sunday

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Speaker 4: through Saturday.

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Speaker 3: It speaks to the whole need for that kind of uniformity.

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Speaker 3: So starting with Sunday is the first day of the week.

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Speaker 3: If we're going since we find ourselves here in America,

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Speaker 3: the Old English would be sun and dyke or sun

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Speaker 3: and dyke, which means Sun's day and the translation of

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Speaker 3: the Latin phrase ds solace.

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Speaker 1: And for a lot of us, if you just read

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Speaker 1: that typed out you would think it said dies soulness,

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Speaker 1: which is a pretty cool super heavy metal hominem there

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Speaker 1: big time. So the next one Monday, Old English monondayg

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Speaker 1: meaning moonsday. So you got the Sun's day, You got

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Speaker 1: the moon's day, Dies Luna or of course Dias. In

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Speaker 1: North Germanic mythology, the moon is personified as mommy, ah

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Speaker 1: many love that guy.

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Speaker 2: Tuesday. Of course, we've got t weeesday Tuesday.

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Speaker 3: Now we're getting into our Canterbury Tales type pronunciations, of course,

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Speaker 3: and this means to his days here, yeah, oh here

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Speaker 3: of course in the God of War games, because he

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Speaker 3: is in fact the god of war, which could be

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Speaker 3: equated to the Roman god Mars.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Under you know how he's interpreted is that it's

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Speaker 1: under the interpretatio romana. Well done, so the Germans have

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Speaker 1: the Romans. Anyway, moving on, we go to Wednesday in

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Speaker 1: Old English, it's Woden's Dieg, meaning the day of the

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Speaker 1: Germanic god. Germanic god Woden or Woden known as Odin. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Odin known for being a super cool deity. He's friends

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Speaker 1: with Ravens.

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Speaker 3: He you can identify with Odin. He's a fan of

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Speaker 3: the Corvins.

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Speaker 2: Oh, thanks man.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got some good developments with them over in

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Speaker 1: this part of the world. Anyway, cro news aside, I'll

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Speaker 1: catch you guys up offline about that. What's next. So

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Speaker 1: we've made it through the Sun, the Moon, tear, and

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Speaker 1: the All Father.

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Speaker 3: And you know, problematic behavior of Neil game and aside,

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Speaker 3: The new season of sand Man is quite good, and

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Speaker 3: that writing and the way it incorporates Norse and Greek

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Speaker 3: mythology remains a favorite. Yes, Odin being a very pivotal

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Speaker 3: character in the plot of The Sandman.

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Speaker 1: It's also interesting that we start with the sun, we

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Speaker 1: go to the moon, but then the god of War

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Speaker 1: comes before, you know, the higher level sort of all

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Speaker 1: purpose god.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't make a whole hell a lot of sense,

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Speaker 2: does it. It's it's weird, okay, And then Thursday.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is one of the easy ones through

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Speaker 1: his dog, the Norse god that we call four. It's

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Speaker 1: so later, depending on how the Marvel movies go, it'll

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Speaker 1: be called Hemsworth's Day or something if.

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Speaker 2: You must, Yes, it's true.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Friday, of course, we've got as frig Diagon, meaning

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Speaker 3: the day of the Anglo Saxon god s Frigae, the

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Speaker 3: Norse name for the planet of Venus being I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: do my best here, Frigg yards Garna, Frigg's star freg.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we've called that. Yeah, we've got Saturday

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Speaker 1: rounding it up. Named after the Roman gods Saturn, of course,

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Speaker 1: associated with the Titan Chronos, the father of Zeus, and

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Speaker 1: many other Olympian deities. Its original name was saturnin is Dead,

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Speaker 1: and in Latin it was Dias Setne Day of Saturn.

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Speaker 3: And according to our dearest pals over at Britannica, UH,

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Speaker 3: the month is based on a concept of lunation, which

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Speaker 3: is the period in which the moon completes a cycle

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Speaker 3: of its phases, and that period lasts around twenty nine

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Speaker 3: and one half days, and it's pretty easy to recognize

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Speaker 3: and you know, visually, and short enough for the days

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Speaker 3: to be counted without having to resort to larger, more

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Speaker 3: complex calculations.

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Speaker 1: So that means most early calendars were essentially a collection

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Speaker 1: of months. But when do we find the first calendar?

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Speaker 1: We know human civilization has always been counting time in

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Speaker 1: one way or another, so there probably are multiple calendars

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Speaker 1: that came and went and never got written down. They

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Speaker 1: were just the understanding of a group of people before

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Speaker 1: writing as a technology was commonplace. In twenty thirteen, some

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Speaker 1: quite intelligent British archaeologists announced the discovery of what they

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Speaker 1: said was the world's oldest calendar. It is a very

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Speaker 1: strange site. You can pull up pictures of it. It's

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Speaker 1: at Warrenfield in Scotland, and it's twelve holes. It's twelve

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Speaker 1: pits that align with the southeastern horizon. These pits point

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Speaker 1: toward a hill that is associated with the sunrise on

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Speaker 1: the mid winter solstice, and the archaeologists argue that hunter

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Speaker 1: gatherers used the arrangement of these pits and this hill

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Speaker 1: to check the height and stage of the moon so

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Speaker 1: that they could track time in relation to the sun

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Speaker 1: and the change of the seasons.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and to that point, I had this kind of

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Speaker 3: inkling that we had talked about the idea of calendars

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Speaker 3: or marking of time having been discovered in cave paintings

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Speaker 3: and etchings, and that is in fact the case. However,

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Speaker 3: the intent behind some of these findings is still kind

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Speaker 3: of hotly debated, right, But we do have some evidence

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Speaker 3: showing that twenty thousand year old ice age drawings represented

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Speaker 3: a kind of lunar calendar designed to track the fertility

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Speaker 3: of different animals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and again there's a lot of forensics here to

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Speaker 1: give some more numbers. The calendar in Scotland, if Calendar

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Speaker 1: bat is about ten thousand years old, making it about

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Speaker 1: twice as old as stone Hinge. And people are on

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Speaker 1: a side note, most familiar with stone Hinge. But there

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Speaker 1: are tons of things like that all spread.

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Speaker 3: Spinal Tap song is that what we're talking about here,

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Speaker 3: which the demons dwell, the banshees live and they do live. Well, Yes, very.

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Speaker 2: Good, we'll keep it.

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Speaker 1: And also we are hugely excited for the spinal tap

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Speaker 1: sequel coming out. We actually interviewed Rob Reiner a while back.

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Speaker 2: He gave us the Scoop Early Scoop.

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Speaker 4: That was one of the coolest things I've done with

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Speaker 4: my job. I was filling in on recording that just

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Speaker 4: one day on stuff I don't to know. I was like,

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Speaker 4: oh my god, this is so cool. He give us

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Speaker 4: that scoop and I'm like, oh, that's a awesome.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, and and to finish this point real quick

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Speaker 1: before we move on, we were interviewing a rob about

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Speaker 1: the phenomenal work he did on his JFK podcast, and

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Speaker 1: the guy really knows his stuff. I think we're all

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Speaker 1: so very impressed. But we're also going to bug him

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Speaker 1: again when Spine the spinal Tap sequel comes out. That

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Speaker 1: was such a such a strange job. That was a

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Speaker 1: good day for all of us. It's a day we

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Speaker 1: would mark on our calendar, our modern calendar. But how

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Speaker 1: did we get there? We got there because, as we

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Speaker 1: said at the top, people had to cooperate and coordinate

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Speaker 1: together across distance. I think that's one of the big

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Speaker 1: deciding points, right, Like, if you go to the history

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Speaker 1: of calendars, you'll see that a lot of it orbits

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Speaker 1: around the time the first cities are discovered were formed.

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Speaker 1: The first ones we know about are between the Tigris

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Speaker 1: and Euphrates rivers. The cradle of civilization, Yes, the cradle

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Speaker 1: of civilization they originated in the Those rivers originate in

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Speaker 1: the Taurust Mountains of southeastern Turkey. They diverge, they run

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Speaker 1: south through Syria and Iraq, and then some more tributaries

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Speaker 1: join the click from Iran and then they flow to

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Speaker 1: the Persian Gulf. And this natural geography kind of dictated

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Speaker 1: the way these ancient peoples thought about calendars.

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Speaker 3: Can I just say that in my twilight years, I've

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Speaker 3: gotten really into my calendar. I schedule everything, and it's

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Speaker 3: just a way to kind of organize my mind in

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Speaker 3: a way that like I don't feel overwhelmed and I

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Speaker 3: can sort of like know exactlyactly what's going on.

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Speaker 2: I even will like schedule myself.

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Speaker 3: For leisure activities they're like working on music or whatever.

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Speaker 3: It's just kind of a way to set intentions. I'm

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Speaker 3: putting that out there. It's something that I dig.

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Speaker 1: But of course, fellow ridiculous historians, we know the question

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Speaker 1: on everybody's mind, why haven't we gone back to the

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Speaker 1: Julian calendar?

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Speaker 2: Noel, you know, a huge, a huge.

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Speaker 1: Proportion of our listener base or just nuts for the

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Speaker 1: Julian calendar.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, named after the adventure of the Orange Julius Julius Caesar.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yep, because it's a myth. See the Caesar salad

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Speaker 1: is not named after Julius Caesar. That's that's untrue.

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Speaker 2: But orange like a salad if we were pronouncing it correctly.

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Speaker 1: Probably orange Julius is is definitely named after Julius Caesar.

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Speaker 2: For sure. No one fact checked that. No, don't do it.

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Speaker 2: Don't fact check anything we say.

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Speaker 1: Actually, so, the end of the Roman Kingdom leads to

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Speaker 1: the growth of the Roman Republic, and now there's a

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Speaker 1: revision of the clindrical system. During this time, the Romans,

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Speaker 1: of course, were super big fans of ripping off everything

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Speaker 1: from the Greeks.

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Speaker 2: They were bullish on ripping stuff off just in general.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were influenced heavily by Greek calendars. The

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Speaker 1: Greek calendars said, we're dividing the year into twelve lunar months.

438
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 1: Some of them will be twenty nine days, some will

439
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: be thirty. The Romans gave the third, fifth, seventh, and

440
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: tenth months thirty one days each. And this is where

441
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: we get that strange, complicated system. Every other month twenty

442
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 1: nine days, except February twenty eight days, and then absurd

443
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 1: twenty nine every leap year, so I know it.

444
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 3: It does my head end. Bro, Sorry, no, can't get

445
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 3: behind it. So I get it, and just thank God

446
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 3: that we have like calendars these days.

447
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,679
Speaker 2: Don't have to We have people for it.

448
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: You don't have to think about it except once every four.

449
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 2: Years or we do a damn episode. Right.

450
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:11,199
Speaker 1: So, after the rollout of the Roman Republic, control over

451
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: calendar calculation passed on to the high Priest of the day,

452
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: so they were the ones who got to determine the

453
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:24,719
Speaker 1: number of days in a month and the organization of

454
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: months in a year. They did something tricky. They realized

455
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 1: that because the priest had such political power, they could

456
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: fiddle with the calendar to LinkedIn or shorten the term

457
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: of office of the consuls, like the earthly powers that

458
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: they support or oppose exactly.

459
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 3: I was going to make a joke about priests fiddling,

460
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:48,400
Speaker 3: but I decided against him.

461
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:51,479
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, I got it.

462
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 1: So this this was hugely important. It sounds maybe a

463
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 1: little bit academic at this point, but think of it

464
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: this way, folks. What if your favorite or least favorite

465
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: political party in the country could tell the public how

466
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 1: long a year is, and what if when they like

467
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 1: the folks in office. Like let's say the bull Moose

468
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:18,400
Speaker 1: Party is back in a big way and they're in charge.

469
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 1: God yeah, thank goodness. Some adults got in the room

470
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: and they're in charge of how long a year is.

471
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: And whenever a bullboose president is in office, they make

472
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 1: the year longer, and whenever a non bull moose.

473
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 2: Guys in, they make the year shorter.

474
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 3: I mean, not to get political at all, you know,

475
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 3: whenever possible, But it doesn't seem like we're super far

476
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 3: off from these types of things be coming up for debate.

477
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, Because if you could already jerrymander cities and

478
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: voting districts, why not jerrymander the calendar.

479
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 2: Let's just jerrymander time in general.

480
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And if you have a problem with it, sorry,

481
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 1: we've jerrymandered the concept of jerrymanderin so certain people can't

482
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: talk about it.

483
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 3: And if we haven't talked about this on the show,

484
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 3: which I'm sure we have, the concept of jerrymandering, that

485
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 3: word is like it was like this kind of like

486
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 3: it was a political cartoon. I think that represented this

487
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 3: kind of monster, like the jerrymander sort of like the

488
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 3: Jabberwocke because of the weird shapes of these redrawn districts

489
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 3: for nefarious political purposes.

490
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: So that's one of the interesting parts of the Julian calendar.

491
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: In its design, it was able to be weaponized politically,

492
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: which makes it dangerous. In addition to being imperfect, the

493
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: calendar is named after Julius Caesar. Every fourth year has

494
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty six days instead of three hundred

495
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: and sixty five, and this is because Roman astronomers calculated

496
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 1: that a year is around three hundred and sixty five

497
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: point two five days, So they were just trying to

498
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: make up the average.

499
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, but then but also have like the the you know,

500
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 3: heliocentric views and and then debates around that that were

501
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 3: politically motivated and religiously motivve.

502
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: Think about it. So the Roman astronomers, while being while

503
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: many were heliocentric, think about it more like they noticed

504
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: the pattern would repeat after a length of time.

505
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 2: There you go, and whichever one is the center and

506
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 2: the timing is the same.

507
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:33,239
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So Julian calendar, you know, the motto is

508
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: better than nothing.

509
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 2: You know, it's a really good dagline. It's a really

510
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 2: it's up almost as good as cheers. Yeah, you know.

511
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: This issue with the calendar, both the political issues and

512
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: the just mathematical issues lead some people to a panic,

513
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 1: a nerd panic that I know we have talked about

514
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: in previous episodes. But to quote the White Stripes, it

515
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: bears repeating because it's it's kind of hilarious. It's a

516
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:12,719
Speaker 1: nerd apocalypse. By the eighth century, Saint Bede, an English

517
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: Benedictine monk, notices that the calendar has already drifted by

518
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: three full days. He freaks out, No one listens to him.

519
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 2: Fives that can have that calendar drift? Though, thing must

520
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 2: be done.

521
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: Something must be done, Call the guys from Fast and Furious.

522
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: Five hundred years later, Roger Bacon says, Hey, the calendar's

523
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: like a week ish off.

524
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 2: Now, Oh jeez, what a mess. I know.

525
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: And this this proves to be a problem for the

526
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: church as well because of another holiday schedule that thoroughly

527
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: confuses both of us. I think the celebration of Easter

528
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: a real moveable feast. It's the date of the spring equinox,

529
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: which has the church ch has earlier established falls on

530
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: March twenty first for them, but by the sixteenth century,

531
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: the equinox is occurring like ten days later.

532
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 3: And can I just say, there's a source that Jeff

533
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 3: found from masterclock dot com that describes the spring equinox

534
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 3: and terms that I hadn't fully wrapped my head around

535
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 3: prior to this. So I just want to read this quote.

536
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 3: We're taught to the spring equinox when the sun is

537
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 3: precisely overhead at the equator and when the day equals

538
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 3: the night everywhere falls exactly on March twentieth.

539
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, amazing right, great work, guys, as long as

540
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 1: we can stop that mission creep in that clindrical drift.

541
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: And so what we see here is a realization that

542
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: preciseness matters in these cylindrical calculations. Close enough or good

543
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: enough is not in fact good enough, because over time

544
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 1: the discrepancies or the inaccuracies will only expand. And that's

545
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: why very slowly calendars drift out of sync with the seasons.

546
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: By the sixteenth century, they had just been adding more

547
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:18,479
Speaker 1: and more leap days. About ten too many heap days.

548
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 2: You're hurting me, You're hurting my brain.

549
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: So this meant that easters at the wrong time. And

550
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: this is where we get are super humble Broski from

551
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: the past, Pope Gregory the thirteenth. Greg says, okay, this

552
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: is getting cartoonish. I'm the Pope. I got a little

553
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 1: bit of juice. All the best astronomers in the land,

554
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: come work for me. This is not a choice. It's

555
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: fifteen to eighty two. I need you guys to figure

556
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: this out. And now they got together with Greg and

557
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: they said, okay, we are going to have a calendar,

558
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: and He's like, great, love calendars. It's great for my schedule.

559
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: And they say, awesome, thanks Greg. We're also going to

560
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: have leap days in the calendar. And then Greg goes, uh.

561
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 2: But only in years divisible by one hundred and not

562
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 2: by four hundred. Stop it, okay, stop it.

563
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: This is where they get Greg back in on the pitch.

564
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 2: He goes, okay, okay, tell me more.

565
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that would, according to Masterclock again, be just

566
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,479
Speaker 3: fine if the year were three hundred and sixty five

567
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 3: point two four two five days.

568
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, which they believed it was.

569
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 1: Uh, it is actually three point sixty five two four

570
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: two one nine. Anyway, I know I'm right there.

571
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 3: It's it's brave, so you know, if that were the

572
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 3: only honeypot that the Pope had his popey fingers in,

573
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 3: the plan might have been accepted more universally. But he

574
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 3: also made the unilateral stipulation that jumped the calendar ten

575
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 3: days forward, so Easter would be consistent with those previous

576
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 3: formulas that were set at the Council, the first Council

577
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 3: of Nicea in three twenty five AD.

578
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:24,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is incredibly wacky and inappropriate. You can

579
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 1: get a message from upper management that says, hey, you

580
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: know how you thought it was Thursday. It's ten days

581
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: later from now, and everybody just pretend. So there are

582
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: these common tales of varying accuracy, actually about people getting

583
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: angry and believing that the rulers have stolen ten days

584
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: of their lives. Yeah, you'll believe this somewhat apocryphal claims

585
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: that there were riots. We don't know how true those

586
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 1: claims are.

587
00:35:56,120 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 2: That's right. So let's move on to when things are

588
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 2: more or less righted.

589
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: Or more or less closer to the world we live

590
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 1: in now.

591
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 2: Less wronged.

592
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 1: Yes, at least we're all pretending everything's fine. Yeah, So

593
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: most Catholic countries and colonies played ball with Greg's ideas,

594
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: but some Protestant nations did object to losing ten days

595
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: because they felt that if they went along with this,

596
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: they would indicate that they were down with the Catholic Church,

597
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,800
Speaker 1: which was very antithetical to their existence. Some. As a result,

598
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: some countries didn't switch over to this system for hundreds

599
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: of years. The British Empire didn't get on the wagon

600
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:49,320
Speaker 1: with this until seventeen fifty two, and I think Japan

601
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 1: didn't adopt the Greg's calendar until eighteen seventy three, Korea

602
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety five.

603
00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 3: It's very strange, it's super strange. Four hundred years we

604
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:08,239
Speaker 3: have European calendars disagreeing by half a month. And it

605
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 3: wasn't until the Bolshevik Revolution took over Russia that the

606
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 3: Gregorian calendar was adopted and Greece was to become the

607
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:22,280
Speaker 3: last European country to switch, and that was as recently

608
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,320
Speaker 3: as nineteen twenty three. As far as calendar adoption is concerned,

609
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:28,320
Speaker 3: that's hella recent.

610
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, because it leads to so many mishaps, so

611
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:37,280
Speaker 1: many crossed wires. As we say, Saudi Arabia didn't switch

612
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: its official calendar from the lunar based Islamic calendar until

613
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. And right now, many countries, many belief systems,

614
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 1: the people there will have two different calendars. Right You'll

615
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: have your own non Gregorian calendar for one purpose or another,

616
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 1: but then to do business globally and to speak with outside,

617
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: you have the Gregorian calendar. It became our sort of

618
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: lingua franca for measuring time, or lingua franca if you

619
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 1: want to be fancy, and this is we all do,

620
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: We all do. I'll have a cravat with my finger

621
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: sandwiches and my finger sandwiches.

622
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 2: So this is.

623
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: How we got to where we are now. This is

624
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:31,399
Speaker 1: also a tease about the alternate non Greg's calendars out there,

625
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: and that's going to be our next episode. No, we

626
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: went in a lot of directions with this, and I

627
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: think it's because we're both so thoroughly fascinated and confused

628
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: by it.

629
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:44,839
Speaker 3: We got a little timey whymy wibbledy wobblede with this one, yall,

630
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:47,839
Speaker 3: so sorry, not sorry, but this is a fun one.

631
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 2: Ben.

632
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: This was a fun one thanks to our super producer

633
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: Max Williams, thanks to our research associate Jeff factor G. Bartlett,

634
00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 1: and then of course thanks to our own Julius Julius Equin.

635
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 3: Indeed, The quizt and aj Bahamas, Jacob's The Puzzler, Christopher

636
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:08,280
Speaker 3: Hasiotis and Eves Jeffcoats both here.

637
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: In spirit, and uh, of course DC's reigning supervillain, the

638
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:15,279
Speaker 1: calendar Man.

639
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.

640
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

641
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows