More Top Picks Best Silverware Sets
player ready...Now that we’re done celebrating Presidents Day, and by that I mean enjoying a day off, let’s consider some of George Washington’s contributions.
Father of our country, leader of the revolutionary troops, successful farmer.
And, a man who went to bed one night and woke up the next day a year younger.
In order to understand this latter phenomenon, you first have to know, 1) the importance of astronomy in calculating time, 2) the power of religion.
Art Maurer is the former director of the Trackman Planetarium at Joliet Junior College. Now retired, Maurer continues to compile a monthly astronomy newsletter at his home in Crete.
In this month’s edition, he wrote, “George Washington’s birthday was changed.”
Naturally, my response was, “What?”
Maurer’s observation had nothing to do with the federal government’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which has the nation marking the first president’s birthday on the third Monday of February, and everything to do with the way humans embrace science, which is often along political lines.
Maurer said, “Washington was born in Virginia on Feb. 11, 1731, according to the then-used Julian calendar. In 1752, however, Britain and all its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar, which moved Washington’s birthday a year and 11 days to Feb. 22, 1732.”
Why a new calendar? To better sync time with the forces of the universe.
Earth, Maurer said, rotates in 24 hours, but it only takes 23 hours and 56 minutes to return to the same time in relation to the stars.
“That’s why we have leap years. If we didn’t, after a hundred years, our calendars would be off by three months in relation to the seasons,” Maurer said.
Back in the mid-16th century, it was well known that the old Julian calendar, instituted in 46 B.C., did not correctly reflect the actual time it takes Earth to circle the sun, said Bruce Janacek, history professor at North Central College in Naperville.
The inaccuracies had theological consequences because the date of Easter is determined by the lunar calendar, he said.
“If the calendar is wrong that means Easter is being celebrated on the wrong day and that could be conceived as an affront to God,” he said.
Pope Gregory XIII, then leader of the Roman Catholic Church, commissioned Isaac Newton to redo the math and correct the process.
Newton did his updates and the Gregorian calendar was born.
However, as so often happens with new information, around the world, the knowledge was either embraced or dismissed according to your views on that other mid-16th Century phenomenon – the Protestant Reformation.
The Gregorian calendar is a product of the Roman Catholic Church and because of that it was not readily welcomed in regions that were Protestant, Janacek said.
“We talk about how politically divided we are now, we’re not even close to how it was” back when Christiandom was splintered, Janacek said.
Being a Protestant nation, Great Britain scoffed at the new calendar for nearly 200 years.
Finally, in 1752, the British government decided it was time to get with the program. It adopted the newer, more accurate Gregorian calendar. The Colonies followed suit and Washington went from age 21 to 20.
Big things would happen for the future Virginia stateman that year, according to biography.com. He would become the heir apparent to his family’s lands, setting him on the path to becoming a wealthy and successful farmer.
Lopping a year off his age was likely not that big a deal, Janacek said.
Most people back then only lost 11 days, as the new calendar was adopted. But because New Year’s Day was moved from March 25 to Jan. 1, those born in between also lost a year.
More Top Picks Best Kids Storage Bins For Toys
Today, the world works off the Gregorian calendar, he said, but many cultures and religions still maintain their own calendar as well. For instance, Greek Orthodox Christians still follow the Julian calendar. But if you were to book a flight to Athens, the dates would be in sync with the Gregorian calendar.
I wondered, does the repositioning of dates wreak havoc on a historian’s work?
“It’s of rare literal importance,” Janacek said.
But often, he added, he comes across documentation that compensates for the change.
“I just finished teaching a book on a 17th century witch hunt in England. Because England had not yet converted meant the new year began on March 25. The historian converted everything to new style, applying our date to theirs. That’s what I do,” he said.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” he said.
Some of us were taught that learning history was all about memorizing lots of dates, Janacek said, “Dates aren’t insignificant but they’re not the most important thing of all. History is at its best when it’s asking questions about human behavior.”
Like having one’s curiosity piqued by a line in an astronomer’s newsletter.
Wondering why George Washington’s birthday would change is akin to opening whole worlds.
“When we start to ask questions about what people did in the past,” he said, “history comes alive.”
Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years.