In the UK, the financial year ends on 5 April. This is Lady Day (25 March) plus the 11 days lost in the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
I believe IBM pay its UK workers on the 6th because at one point they wanted to move pay day to as early as possible without paying more than 12 times in a tax year. This means that the day lots of people get paid in 2025 has been set by a deliberate simplification Julius Ceasar made in 46BC. That's technical debt that lasted a long time.
Looking at the names of the months, September is the 9th month and October is the 10th? December is the 12th? Those names changed to those numberings roughly about the same time,
and is also tech debt.
I just looked that up (in 4o with Search), and it happened long before ceasar made the Julian calendar:
“Your observation about the misalignment between the numerical prefixes of the later months and their positions in the calendar is astute. This discrepancy arises from the evolution of the Roman calendar over time.
Original Roman Calendar:
• Structure: The early Roman calendar, traditionally attributed to Romulus, the founder of Rome, comprised 10 months totaling 304 days. The year began in March (Martius) and concluded in December (December), followed by a winter period that was not assigned to any month.
• Month Names and Numerical Order:
1. Martius (March)
2. Aprilis (April)
3. Maius (May)
4. Junius (June)
5. Quintilis (fifth month)
6. Sextilis (sixth month)
7. September (seventh month)
8. October (eighth month)
9. November (ninth month)
10. December (tenth month)
Introduction of January and February:
• Reforms by Numa Pompilius: To align the calendar more accurately with the lunar year, the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, is traditionally credited with adding two months:
• Januarius (January)
• Februarius (February)
• Impact on Month Positions: These additions shifted the original months from their positions, making September the ninth month, October the tenth, and so forth. Despite this shift, the original names were retained, leading to the current numerical misalignment.
Renaming of Quintilis and Sextilis:
• Quintilis to July: In 44 BCE, following the assassination of Julius Caesar, the Roman Senate renamed Quintilis to July in his honor, as it was the month of his birth.
• Sextilis to August: Later, in 8 BCE, the month Sextilis was renamed August to honor Emperor Augustus. To match the length of July, a day was added to August, resulting in both months having 31 days.
Clarifying Misconceptions:
• Insertion of Months: The renaming of Quintilis and Sextilis did not involve the insertion of new months but rather the renaming of existing ones. Therefore, this action did not disrupt the numerical sequence of the months.
• Retention of Numerical Names: The numerical names for September through December persisted even after calendar reforms and the renaming of months. This retention is why there is a discrepancy between their names and their positions in the modern calendar.
Conclusion:
The misalignment between the numerical prefixes of the months September through December and their positions in the calendar results from historical reforms and the retention of traditional names despite changes in the calendar’s structure. The renaming of months to honor Julius Caesar and Augustus did not disrupt the numerical naming convention; instead, it was the earlier addition of January and February that shifted the original positions of the months, leading to the current nomenclature.”
US tax return forms/documentation is due April 15, but the taxes needed to be paid by the previous Jan 15 (minus a several month reprieve for taxes on income that exceeds your previous year's income)
on April 15 the taxes on your first quarter of the current year are also due.
I'm not sure of the history of April 15 specifically, but April or so is probably about the earliest you can easily get all your reconciled financial statements if your finances are at all complex and put together your tax filings. I don't even get a W-2 until late January and I have at least one statement that tends to trail into early March.
the January 15 quarterly estimate is for the last quarter of the previous year, let's call it 2024. April 15 2025 is when you file your tax return for the 2024, but you HAVE ALREADY PAID OR HAD WITHHELD YOUR TAXES FOR 2024.
If you have earned more wages in 2024 than you did in 2023, you will only have to have paid the same as you ultimately owed in 2023 for 2024, and in that case you will have the chance to cough up the remainder on April 15, 2025, but that is nowhere near close to saying that is when you 2025 taxes are "due" as you are claiming.
A decent case can be made for March 1 as the start of the year. With March 1 as the start of the year the extra day in leap years then comes on the last day of the year. This makes dealing with leap years when calculating the day of the week from a date simpler.
It also makes the names of September, October, November, and December make sense. Those names come from the Roman words for 7, 8, 9, and 10, which were the numbers of those months in the old Roman calendar which did start the year on March 1. The Romans switch the start to January sometime around 700 BCE giving us the current ridiculous situation where those months are two months later in the year than their names suggest.
The change was made by Caesar's reform of calendar in 46BC. January first was the date of consular elections, and Romans didn't used year number ab urbe condita ("since the foundation of Rome") regularly in daily life, instead they called the years by the running consuls' names. Therefore it made more sense for Romans to start the year at January first.
Well, that’s what the internet told me. But checking again it is also telling me 45 BC and 153 BC.
The site that gave me the 700 BC date said it was done by king Numa Pompilius. Wikipedia’s article on him says that Plutarch is the source for the claim Numa moved the new year to January.
But Plutarch was writing around the 2nd century and Wikipedia says his writings about Numa give unique information on the Roman calendar which suggests that there aren’t other sources. Probably not worth trusting a single source that old writing about something 900 years older.
Tolkien also timed the end of the War of the Ring, and the start of the Fourth Age the following year, to March 25th. It’s a deliberate echo of the Annunciation — or in-universe context, a foreshadowing.
In Exodus 12:1-2, at the beginning of the section that decrees Passover, God also tells Moses and Aaron that the month of Passover is the first month of the year:
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "This month is
to be for you the first month, the first month of your
year. ..."
There's a weird parallel between the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars. In both cases, the historic "new year" is in spring (Hebrew Nisan, Gregorian March), perhaps to coincide with planting? And in both cases intercalation happens right before that, at the end of the year - the Hebrew calendar duplicates Adar, the month before Nisan, and the Gregorian has an extra day of February. (Historically this was February 24 happening twice, not an additional day numbered 29, which is a whole other story.) But in both cases the year number increments at a different time - Hebrew Tishri in the fall, Gregorian January in the winter - so the intercalation appears to happen at some "random" moment within the year.
The year begins on January 1st per Julius Caesar's calendar reform of 46BC, because in Rome the year was called by the name of the elected consuls, and consuls were elected on January first. So basically, up until this change it was confusing for the Romans to call the year by the current consuls' names, though actually the current year ran from March to March (starting at the equinox).
The article mentions parliament may rival doctor Who. However, the Eleven-day Empire appears in Doctor Who. That organisation has set up their base in a time loop consisting of those days that this law excluded from the official calendar. Thus, Dr Who very explicitly has matched this parlimentary act, I suppose.
Engaging with TFA's thesis: occasionally, it's correct for institutions to insist on law over lore. For one, that lore might be just as artificial or short-lived or "mistaken" (as much as these things can be) as anything seeking to replace it - as some comments have mentioned, the "customary" start of the year was itself imposed by Caesar amid a history of a March start. It might also be in society's best interests that cooler heads determine a particular course. The "lore" of the demihumanity of certain populations takes hold popularly, from time to time, for example. The law prevents, in the worst cases, slaughter (or builds parameters for punishment and future deterrence after the fact).
"And the problem was that people ignored what they were supposed to think, and carried on celebrating the new year on 1 January anyway, as they had done since time immemorial."
"Time immemorial" is an exaggeration, right, as many commenters here gave contrary examples.
It is absurd and stupid to have the beginning year not also be the beginning of a month. (Same for weeks to months, things a dumb feature of our calendar). But December vs March is totally arbitrary, right?
The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes.
From the point of view of an inhabitant of the northern hemisphere, the choice remains between the Winter solstice, i.e. the moment when the Sun begins its journey on the sky back towards us, after reaching a maximum distance on the sky from us, and the Spring equinox, the moment when the Sun returns on the sky to the northern hemisphere.
Those who are guilty for the fact that the solstices and the equinoxes do not fall on beginnings of months are Julius Caesar and his astronomer consultant, Sosigenes.
The Roman calendar had been very bad and it had drifted extremely from the astronomical year. The calendar reform of Caesar has corrected the length of the year, but it has failed to align the solstices and the equinoxes with the beginnings of months. Instead of that, the Winter solstice fell on the 25th of December and the Spring equinox fell on the 25th of March.
So the calendar of Julius Caesar is the origin of the adoption of the 25th of December for the Christmas and of the 25th of March for the beginning of the year in several countries.
Additional confusion has been created by the Gregorian calendar, which has not restored the calendar from the beginning of the Christian era, but it has restored the calendar of the 4th century, when the rules for computing the date of the Easter have been established. The calendar of the 4th century had been shifted by 3 days since the calendar reform of Caesar, resulting in the current dates for the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox around the 22th of December and the 22th of March.
So now not only the solstices and equinoxes do not fall on the beginnings of months, but they no longer fall on the traditional days of the 25th of their months.
> The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes.
Why? You could also eg pick where earth is closest or farthest from the sun, or at exactly average distance or anything like that.
> So the calendar of Julius Caesar is the origin of the adoption of the 25th of December for the Christmas and of the 25th of March for the beginning of the year in several countries.
Christmas wasn't invented yet whan Julius Caesar was alive. So the story must be a bit more complicated than that.
> Why? You could also eg pick where earth is closest or farthest from the sun, or at exactly average distance or anything like that.
Hard to measure for people back then. Solstices and the equinoxes are easier.
> Christmas wasn't invented yet whan Julius Caesar was alive.
Doesn’t necessarily mean that Christmas was invented when the Calendar was fixed. The logic is the other way around. Solstices and the equinoxes are tend to be used as reference for special/holy days. Caesar‘s calendar gave them a certain date
Well, you were talking about 'rational' points, not what's easy to measure.
The Egyptians picked the appearance of a certain store above the horizon as their fixed point for the year (or something like that). That was rational for them, but doesn't have all that much to do with equinoxes.
> The only rational points for the beginning of a year are the solstices or the equinoxes.
It makes sense to use those as a basis.
And it makes sense to line up the months with those points.
But if the months don't line up, I think aligning with the nearest month is much better than not doing so. At least on the kind of solar calendar we use.
When you base the first of anything based on the phases of the moon, you'll more often not be aligned with the 1st of any month. Basing a calendar on the phases of the moon doesn't line up with the full orbit around the sun, so something has to change somewhere. ~365.25 / ~29.53 doesn't work out to a whole number, so whatchagunnado? Leap seconds and leap years! Perfect!
I'm confused. The topic is the Julian and Gregorian calendars and things very close to them, right? Nothing in those calendars is based on the phase of the moon.
Months are obviously inspired by the moon, but there's no attempt in this system to make them go anywhere near lining up. And that inspiration wouldn't block any attempt to align week starts with month starts.
Yes, and that's why the month of Ramadan in the Muslim calendar shifts by about two weeks every year, because it's a lunar calendar. But this doesn't apply here.
Well if you want to keep the whole number of weeks thing, you are then doing a leap week every 7 years except for multiples of 28, or something like that. Or if you want to keep each week same number of days maybe a leap month.
Of course none of this is unheard of. The jewish calendar adds a leap month every 19 years to keep in sync with both the moon and the sun. Or if you want to go in the other direction you could just have one day not part of any week (cotsworth calendar)
Arbitrary?I guess. I always assumed it had to do with the seasons. With the new year starting roughly after the winter solstice. Why the solstices aren't lined up with the month is beyond me. Buy it makes more sense to me that the new year basically starts with the days getting longer. As opposed to, I guess, when the plants start turning green again.
Yes and no. As the article reminds us many of the months have numbers in the name. It is arbitrary to have December as the 10th month, but having the thing with 10 in the name as the tenth thing is somewhat more satisfying than having it as the 12th.
Yes, February should be the earliest month in the year and numbered as month 0. Then October could have number 8, and so on, and January could be the last month and the two faced god would be good for looking forward and back, as people are wont to do at the end of the year.
Yes, so January should be the last month of the year so people can look forward and back, and February could be month 0. Then everything would line up with October being month 8.
“Your observation about the misalignment between the numerical prefixes of the later months and their positions in the calendar is astute. This discrepancy arises from the evolution of the Roman calendar over time.
Original Roman Calendar: • Structure: The early Roman calendar, traditionally attributed to Romulus, the founder of Rome, comprised 10 months totaling 304 days. The year began in March (Martius) and concluded in December (December), followed by a winter period that was not assigned to any month. • Month Names and Numerical Order: 1. Martius (March) 2. Aprilis (April) 3. Maius (May) 4. Junius (June) 5. Quintilis (fifth month) 6. Sextilis (sixth month) 7. September (seventh month) 8. October (eighth month) 9. November (ninth month) 10. December (tenth month)
Introduction of January and February: • Reforms by Numa Pompilius: To align the calendar more accurately with the lunar year, the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, is traditionally credited with adding two months: • Januarius (January) • Februarius (February) • Impact on Month Positions: These additions shifted the original months from their positions, making September the ninth month, October the tenth, and so forth. Despite this shift, the original names were retained, leading to the current numerical misalignment.
Renaming of Quintilis and Sextilis: • Quintilis to July: In 44 BCE, following the assassination of Julius Caesar, the Roman Senate renamed Quintilis to July in his honor, as it was the month of his birth. • Sextilis to August: Later, in 8 BCE, the month Sextilis was renamed August to honor Emperor Augustus. To match the length of July, a day was added to August, resulting in both months having 31 days.
Clarifying Misconceptions: • Insertion of Months: The renaming of Quintilis and Sextilis did not involve the insertion of new months but rather the renaming of existing ones. Therefore, this action did not disrupt the numerical sequence of the months. • Retention of Numerical Names: The numerical names for September through December persisted even after calendar reforms and the renaming of months. This retention is why there is a discrepancy between their names and their positions in the modern calendar.
Conclusion:
The misalignment between the numerical prefixes of the months September through December and their positions in the calendar results from historical reforms and the retention of traditional names despite changes in the calendar’s structure. The renaming of months to honor Julius Caesar and Augustus did not disrupt the numerical naming convention; instead, it was the earlier addition of January and February that shifted the original positions of the months, leading to the current nomenclature.”
on April 15 the taxes on your first quarter of the current year are also due.
the January 15 quarterly estimate is for the last quarter of the previous year, let's call it 2024. April 15 2025 is when you file your tax return for the 2024, but you HAVE ALREADY PAID OR HAD WITHHELD YOUR TAXES FOR 2024.
If you have earned more wages in 2024 than you did in 2023, you will only have to have paid the same as you ultimately owed in 2023 for 2024, and in that case you will have the chance to cough up the remainder on April 15, 2025, but that is nowhere near close to saying that is when you 2025 taxes are "due" as you are claiming.
It also makes the names of September, October, November, and December make sense. Those names come from the Roman words for 7, 8, 9, and 10, which were the numbers of those months in the old Roman calendar which did start the year on March 1. The Romans switch the start to January sometime around 700 BCE giving us the current ridiculous situation where those months are two months later in the year than their names suggest.
That doesn’t look right.
The site that gave me the 700 BC date said it was done by king Numa Pompilius. Wikipedia’s article on him says that Plutarch is the source for the claim Numa moved the new year to January.
But Plutarch was writing around the 2nd century and Wikipedia says his writings about Numa give unique information on the Roman calendar which suggests that there aren’t other sources. Probably not worth trusting a single source that old writing about something 900 years older.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/25_March
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2164005/jewis...
It was also the first month of the Roman calendar until January and February were added.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martius_(month)
"Time immemorial" is an exaggeration, right, as many commenters here gave contrary examples.
From the point of view of an inhabitant of the northern hemisphere, the choice remains between the Winter solstice, i.e. the moment when the Sun begins its journey on the sky back towards us, after reaching a maximum distance on the sky from us, and the Spring equinox, the moment when the Sun returns on the sky to the northern hemisphere.
Those who are guilty for the fact that the solstices and the equinoxes do not fall on beginnings of months are Julius Caesar and his astronomer consultant, Sosigenes.
The Roman calendar had been very bad and it had drifted extremely from the astronomical year. The calendar reform of Caesar has corrected the length of the year, but it has failed to align the solstices and the equinoxes with the beginnings of months. Instead of that, the Winter solstice fell on the 25th of December and the Spring equinox fell on the 25th of March.
So the calendar of Julius Caesar is the origin of the adoption of the 25th of December for the Christmas and of the 25th of March for the beginning of the year in several countries.
Additional confusion has been created by the Gregorian calendar, which has not restored the calendar from the beginning of the Christian era, but it has restored the calendar of the 4th century, when the rules for computing the date of the Easter have been established. The calendar of the 4th century had been shifted by 3 days since the calendar reform of Caesar, resulting in the current dates for the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox around the 22th of December and the 22th of March.
So now not only the solstices and equinoxes do not fall on the beginnings of months, but they no longer fall on the traditional days of the 25th of their months.
Why? You could also eg pick where earth is closest or farthest from the sun, or at exactly average distance or anything like that.
> So the calendar of Julius Caesar is the origin of the adoption of the 25th of December for the Christmas and of the 25th of March for the beginning of the year in several countries.
Christmas wasn't invented yet whan Julius Caesar was alive. So the story must be a bit more complicated than that.
Hard to measure for people back then. Solstices and the equinoxes are easier.
> Christmas wasn't invented yet whan Julius Caesar was alive.
Doesn’t necessarily mean that Christmas was invented when the Calendar was fixed. The logic is the other way around. Solstices and the equinoxes are tend to be used as reference for special/holy days. Caesar‘s calendar gave them a certain date
The Egyptians picked the appearance of a certain store above the horizon as their fixed point for the year (or something like that). That was rational for them, but doesn't have all that much to do with equinoxes.
Your example of the Egyptians is also easy to measure.
I guess at that point mythology kicks in. Could explain why the winter solstice is often used: the dark timed are over, the days get brighter.
(This is all from memory, please don't quote me on this.)
It makes sense to use those as a basis.
And it makes sense to line up the months with those points.
But if the months don't line up, I think aligning with the nearest month is much better than not doing so. At least on the kind of solar calendar we use.
Months are obviously inspired by the moon, but there's no attempt in this system to make them go anywhere near lining up. And that inspiration wouldn't block any attempt to align week starts with month starts.
~365.2425 includes the leap year, century, and 4 century gregorian adjustments, and it's not a difficult number to remember actually.
"it's not quite .25? how much is it shy? .2425"
The only issue I see would be if you were born on a Monday your birthday would always be on a Monday.
Of course none of this is unheard of. The jewish calendar adds a leap month every 19 years to keep in sync with both the moon and the sun. Or if you want to go in the other direction you could just have one day not part of any week (cotsworth calendar)
Well january is literally named after janus, the deity of beginnings and endings.
Let’s not even start on pre-decimal coinage or pre-metric units