Calendars--How's Your Time Coming Along? Any Important Dates?

We can track our days.  The Ancients did this as well.

Maybe not in 24-hour periods, but they did.  The Ancients measured their days and their months and their years through the stars--through astronomy and through their position on the earth (which affects how one observes the stars).

They measured things by the sunrise to sunrise being a day and the moon going through its phases being a moonth (uh, month).  They kept many records and, based on their recorded observations, they tracked the passage of time.  They noted the summer solstice (longest day of the year) and the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year). They noted that sometimes stars would appear high in the sky and sometimes they'd appear low over the horizon. They also noted that some stars stayed relatively still and were always near the same place in the sky no matter what season or time of the year and they noted that other astronomical bodies moved about--the "Wanderers"--or discovered many centuries and ages later to be "planets". 

So...  measuring our solar system and the stars in our galaxy and the other galaxies beyond became a way to help the ancients "tell time"--and, when thought about over many centuries became a "calendar" ... there were the Julian Calendars and the Gregorian Calendars.

So.... many moons ago, they came up with architectural wonders such as the pyramids of both Egypt and the New World, and other things such as Stonehenge in England or the Mayan temples in the Jungles of Central America--these structures could be used to accurately predict the arrival of the summer and winter solstices. The philosophers and priests of the ancient civilizations, who kept these records to themselves, were regarded as mystical and magical beings by the common folks who didn't think much about the stars and planets.  With their highly accurate observations, the ancient priests could even begin to predict things such as solar and lunar eclipses, the tides, and the phases of the moon. These records were carved in stone, and later, put on papyrus, parchment, animal hides, and textiles.

And, now we come to the present.  The calendar. We've got all the days listed. Some calendars show the phases of the moon. Some show the tides for your local region. Some show the seasons and the solstices. Browse through the variety presented here for more enlightenment.  There are also books and resources to learn more about the passage of time and how it relates to astronomy and the universe.

Enjoy....