doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (02/11/85)
> However, others are needed for a perpetual calendar. For example, a > special one is needed for 1752. September of that year is missing > eleven days. Try cal 9 1752 on your UNIX(c) system. Well, that just goes to show that the author of "cal" was totally oblivious to his insignificant place in the world. Yes, it's true that in September 1752, 11 days were removed in order to adjust from the old Julian to the current Gregorian calendar. But that adjustment occurred on that date ONLY in a small part of the world, which happened to include England's colonies in the New World, which happened to be where the author of "cal" lived. A large part of the world never adopted the Julian calendar in the first place, since the Roman Empire was not exactly a global one. And of the part of the world that *did* use the Julian calendar, almost all was controlled by the Catholic church in 1582, which made the change to the Gregorian calendar in *that* year. Some pockets of Julianism (is that a word?) lived on even into the 1960's, particularly around the Caribbean. There is no one "right and true" calendar. Every culture's calendar is different. Unix(tm) certainly isn't going to convert the world to the American calendar -- "cal" or not. -- Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug