Hi, William.  

I seem not have been precise enough it would seem.  The calendar was changed
- from 1200 hours, Sept. 2, 1752 until 0001 14 Sept., 1752 the dates were
removed to bring all back into accord with the equinoxes.  I surely did in
no way intend to say that March 25 was the subject of any change whatever;
it was and remains that date.  However, January 1 became the first day of
our New Year, and thereafter the first days of our years have been so
celebrated.

There is another aspect that deserves comment for those of us who are
tracking folks through Europe/France, etc.  The various differences affected
commerce and trade in a small way, rendering it to be a tad difficult to
state/calculate arrivals and departures of ships, as well as people.  For
that small problem, remember that most of what today we know as France
adopted the new calendar on 9 December 1582, as did several other
nation-states of central and Western Europe. Google,
{brainyhistory.com/topics/g/gregorian.html}

Legal, religious and documents of trade, especially in contracts, brought
about a need to demonstrate what calendar was being use.  I have a New
Hampshire deed of 1742 that clearly reveals its year of origination as
"1741/1742".  Anyone who would like to see a copy of that, please contact me
privately.  

Another interesting fact brought about by the changing of the calendars has
to do with our naming of months.  Under the "old" calendar what we call
September indeed was the seventh month - "septa" - though we now call Sept.
the 9th month, thereby ignoring the Latin prefixes.  We consider the seventh
month to be July; October we call the 10th month (octa-), and December
(deca-) our 12th month, though the prefix would read as the 10th month under
the old calendars.

Paul   


-----Original Message-----
From: William Milam [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 07:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Gregorian*

Paul - I think that you will find that the Gregorian calendar was "adopted"
buy

Parliament in 1751 but it was put into effect in Great Brittan and its
colonies in 1752  

with the first day of the year changed to January 1st (rather than March
25th) and 

later in September the 11 days were skipped. Thus 1751 was a short year by
two months and 24 days.

 

William

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