Leaders, both political and religious, as well as common citizens, have a long history of using the system of timekeeping to gain control of other people and/or a situation. For a long time, our way of measuring the passage of time has remained nearly exactly the same, and attempts to entirely rewrite it have failed. However, it is not entirely implausible to think that some person or organization could take power and succeed in that endeavor someday.
The earliest known methods of timekeeping used the movement of the stars and planets to predict such necessities as the best times for planting and harvesting crops. It was a very simple system but nearly flawless. As time progressed and leaders began exploring more ways to demonstrate their dominance, this system progressively became more complex and inaccurate, even while others tried to maintain order.
In Ancient Rome, the calendar had degraded so far as to be completely unreliable. Julius Caesar created a new calendar, naturally called the Julian calendar, which was designed to be entirely accurate. Of course, it wasn’t. It was only off by eleven minutes, but those minutes would add up over time. Furthermore, it was during the reign of Julius Caesar and that of his nephew – the first emperor and Julius’ heir – Augustus Caesar, that two new months were introduced to the previously ten-month calendar – July and August.
The Gregorian calendar is what is most familiar now. It was based on the Julian system but designed a bit differently in order to correct those eleven minutes. The calendar was named after Pope Gregory XIII as during the 16th century, when these reforms were being made, the Pope held a great amount of power. It was widely accepted and adopted as the primary timekeeping system in many places over time, but there were some who adamantly refused – particularly the Russian Orthodox Church and the German and English Protestants. Both clung desperately to the old Julian system. But while the Protestants eventually gave in after centuries of resistance, the Russians did not, and even today they retain the old Julian calendar.
The country of Turkey tried out many different calendars before finally accepting the Gregorian calendar. To make matters more complicated, they do not use the common titles for even commonly-used calendars. The Julian calendar is known as the "financial calendar", and the Gregorian is called the "international calendar" – the latter having a better-known alternative than the former. Being a majority-Islamic country, Turkey started out with the Islamic calendar. They began using the financial calendar in 1840, while the Islamic calendar was still being used at the same time. The Islamic calendar lost its validity once they made the switch to the Gregorian calendar in December of 1925.
When the Soviet Union came to power, they almost successfully replaced every aspect of the old Russian culture. A notable area in which they failed was the calendar. In the year 1929, the seven-day week was abolished in favor of a five-day week. The names of the months remained the same, but the lengths of those months changed. This system did not sit well with the people, so in 1932 the week was revised again to consist of six days. Ultimately, this did not last long, either, and the Julian calendar was restored in 1940.
A more famous, but just as unsuccessful, attempt to rewrite the established calendar was made by Maximilien Robespierre and his followers during France’s First Republic. The traditional seven-day week was replaced with ten-day “decades.” The ten-day week served to replace Christianity. With the revised calendar, it would eventually become impossible for the citizens to know which day was Sunday, thus they could not attend church. As well as the days of the week, the names of the months were all changed, as well as the names and lengths of hours, minutes, and seconds. This way, watchmakers, too, would be able to make and sell new equipment. Of course, this system – like that of the Soviets – was doomed to fail, and in 1805 Napoleon replaced it with the Gregorian calendar.
One final example is when the people of London, England, showed tremendous resolve when they rioted against the Gregorian Calendar Reform of 1582. Interestingly, the riots took place in 1752. The British government, being a bit behind the times, waited nearly two hundred years to implement those reforms. What was to be September 2 became September 14. Many people mistakenly thought that their lives were being shortened and some workers believed they were losing eleven days' pay. Several people were killed in the ensuing riots, but the government retained the reform, and they’ve used the Gregorian calendar ever since.
