Gregorian calendar is the most accepted calendar
internationally. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on 24 Feb 1582. This calendar was
started to rectify the anomalies in Julian calendar. The Julian calendar assumed that a year was
based on 362.25 days; however a year was actually 11 minutes shorter than this
duration. As a result there was an error of approximately 3 days in a cycle of
400 years. At the time when Gregorian calendar came into existence this error
in days had already reached 10 days.
As a
result of this anomaly of 10 days, the Easter which was to fall on 21st
March came on 11th March. The Roman Catholic churches wanted this
anomaly to be rectified; as a result Gregorian calendar came into existence. To
correct the Julian calendar, Pope Gregory ordered that 15 October 1582 will be
followed by 04th October 1582 and hence the time was corrected. The Gregorian
calendar brought about two major changes. Firstly, that every year which was
divisible by 4 would be a leap year, except for those years which are exactly
divisible by 100 also. Secondly, length of a calendar year was changed from
365.25 days to 365.242 days, thereby reducing 10mins and 48 seconds per year,
Thus error of 11minutes of Julian calendar was negated.
Gregorian
calendar is based on 365.24 days as the duration of a year. To account for this
quarter of a day every fourth year is a leap year, having 29 days in February. As per the Gregorian calendar a year has been
divided into 12 months of which 7 months have 31 days, 4 months have 30 days and
1 month has 28 days. Interestingly July is named after Julius Caesar and August
after the name of Augustus Caesar, also these two months have been given 31 days.
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