Thread:AmyAgain/@comment-44289441-20191221202950/@comment-44123106-20191222124601

The calendar change was from the Julian (Julius Caesar) to the Gregorian (Pope Gregory) and it added 17 days to keep the calendar in line with the solar year. The UK adopted it in the 1700s (I forget which year) and it caused riots as people thought they had had 17 days stolen from them. Historians have to careful when dating events that span this time.

UK was also a late adopter since we'd split from the Catholic church during the Reformation in late 1500s. In Wales we celebrate Hen Calan - Old New Year, too. Check out Mari Lwyd! England just got on with it, since there had already been a change in new year from April 1st (still the start of the financial year) to January 1st.

@Amy You changed from Protestant to Catholic? Martin Luther was one of the original Protesters/Protestants - he nailed his theses to the cathedral door. They protested about indulgences and the general corruption in the Church.

And going back further, the Christians in general hijacked the Solstice/MidWinter/Saturnali celebrations of the various extant religions and superimposed the Nativity onto the renewal and rebirth stories that already existed.

I describe myself as a Druidic Christian or Christian Druid, depending on which feels more dominant. I find the history of religions, belief systems and faith very interesting. All religions contain elements of truth; none contain the whole truth - and all have been corrupted/bent out of shape/morphed by the humans involved, usually for the gaining of power, influence and money by individuals. Religions are different from faith/faiths and belief systems. Religions are like companies, a person's faith is to be respected.

The UK still uses miles; I can visualise the Imperial system much more easily than the metric, despite using metric throughout my school and work life (I'm an engineer!). I also have a problem with zeros/powers of ten...can't carry them through a calculation correctly! Never could, so I check several times. That an '2' / '3' blindness - they swap magically in calcs causes much fun!

The UK banned the use of other Imperial measurements at the instruction of the EU, just as our money went metric in 1971. Lsd - that's pounds (lira - Italian/Roman) shillings (schillings - German) and pence (denari - Roman again) is so much more interesting! Like the rest of the Imperial system, it is based on 12s, so divisible by 2, 3 and 4. Metric is only 2 and 5.

I know why people think metric is easier, but would you want a metric time system? The French tried metric dates after their Revolution - it didn't work!

Ooops!! Long post - at least it came back to calendars!

Blessings all!

PS: centimetre...😉