(Gregorian Calendar, Old Style [OS], and New Style [NS], and relationship to dates of events concerning the Germanna Colonists.)
Julius Caesar saw that the calendar then in use needed reforming. He told his astronomer, Sosigenes to design a new calendar without using the moon, a bold step in itself. Sosigenes, an Alexandrian Greek from Egypt, said that the year was 365.250 days long. This was close, but not right on. The solar year was 11 minutes and 14 seconds shorter than this value. By the time the Sixteenth Century rolled around, it was obvious that there was a difference between the Calendar Year, figured at 365.250 days, and the Solar Year at 365.248 days. By the Sixteenth Century, the shortest day of the year by the Calendar was occurring 10 days later than actual Astronomical Observations.
In the Julian Calendar, every fourth year was a Leap Year, with 366 days to account for the 0.25O fraction in the length of the assumed Solar Year. Pope Gregory XIII, being made aware of the difference between Sosigenes' 365.250-day year, and the actual Solar Year of 365.248 days, took the lead and saw that it would be necessary to change the rules for Leap Years. By the Sixteenth Century, to get the Solar and the Calendar Years back in sync, it would be necessary to drop, or omit, ten days from the calendar then in use.
Gregory's new rules for the Leap Years were that years evenly divisible by 400 would be Leap Years. Years divisible by 100, but not by 400, would not be Leap Years. Years divisible by 4 would be Leap Years, if they fell outside the two rules just given. The Gregorian Calendar became effective on October 5, 1582, which was followed by October 15, and the new rules for Leap Years went into effect. Also, January 1 became New Year's Day (NS). More exactly, the Catholic world made this change, while the Protestant world kept to the old calendar (OS), in which March 25 was New Year's Day. The German world gradually switched to the NS, some regions taking more than a hundred years to change. (Russia and Turkey did not switch until the Twentieth Century.)
From 1582 to 1752, in the English-speaking world, there was a general recognition that there were two calendars. In calendars, the Julian became known as the Old Style and the Gregorian became known as New Style. Not only were the days different (up to 1700, there was a ten-day difference, and after 1700 there was an eleven-day difference). From January 1 to March 24, there was also a difference in the year. In this range of days, the New Style calendar was one year ahead of the Old Style calendar because of the difference in New Years Day.
When the conversion was made from the Old Style to New Style calendars in 1752, there were many people who felt that eleven days had literally been taken away from them. There would eleven days less in their life.
Though we say that George Washington was born on February 22, his mother would have said he was born on February 11. I suppose that she should know as she was probably there. But even more than this eleven day difference, there was also a difference in the year that his mother would have said and what we would say today.
(26 Oct 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.