Barney Riddle, age 13, of Marion, Ohio, for his question:
WHAT IS THE WORLD CALENDAR?
Our present calendar has many problems. Payroll and production records are kept by the month but they are hard to compare because the number of work days in a month varies from 22 to 27. A plan that would overcome these inconveniences is called the World Calendar.
An organization sponsoring the World Calendar submitted the idea to the United Nations in 1956, but nothing has been done about making it the official calendar.
It is difficult at the present time to keep records by the half years or quarters. The present system has 181 days in the first half of the year, with 182 days in leap year, and 184 days in the second half.
At the present time, the quarters of the year contain 90, 91, 92 and 92 days, with the 90 becoming 91 in leap years.
Another objection to the present calendar is that the year begins on a different day each year.
The World Calendar has four quarters of 91 days each. According to this calendar, the number of days in the months are the same year after year with January, April, July and October having 31 days each and the other eight months having 30 days each.
The new calendar would have 364 days in its year. The extra day would be a holiday which would always fall between Dec. 30 and Jan. 1.
In leap year the World Calendar would add an extra day between June 30 and July 1. This day would also be a holiday for everyone in the world.
Although the months of the World Calendar would still be unequal in length, this unequal length would fall in a regular way. The quarters of the year would be equal and the half years would also be equal. The calendar would be the same year after year. Jan. 1 would always be on a Sunday. And the calendar would simplify the keeping of business records.
Our present calendar grew out of the Roman calendar which had only 10 months and about 300 days, which fell short of the actual year by more than 60 days. Later King Numa Pompilius added two more months to make a lunar year of 360 days.
By the time of Julius Caesar, the calendar was hopelessly confused. Caesar decided to stop using the lunar calendar and adopt a new one based on a solar year of 365 and a quarter days. Caesar ordered that the year 46 B.C. should have 445 days, to catch up to the solar year, and then each year would have 365 days with a leap year of 366 days each four years.
The Julian calendar, as Caesar's calendar was called, was 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the time the earth takes to circle the sun. As the years and centuries passed, the small mistake grew from minutes into hours and then into days.
Pope Gregory XIII in the 16th century decided that the calendar needed to be reformed. Ten days were dropped from the year 1582. To keep the calendar correct in the future, Gregory ordered that leap year should be skipped in the last year of every century unless that year could be divided by 400. Thus 1700, 1800 and 1900 would be ordinary years rather than leap years because they were not divisible by 400.
This new system is called the New Style or Gregorian calendar.
The 13 American colonies did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.