Mike Williams wrote: > Wasn't it David Harper who wrote: >> >> According to histories of the calendar, February has never had more >> than 29 days, even in the time of the Roman Republic before Julius >> Caesar's overhaul. >> >> Thus any appearance of 30 February in historical records is certainly >> the result of clerical ineptitude or inebriation :-) > > In Sweden and (what is now) Finland, they started to use a weird system > for slowly changing from Julian to Gregorian calendar systems. A few > years later they changed their minds and reverted back to the Julian > Calendar by having two leap days in 1712, the 29th and 30th of February. > > http://www.naturalistsalmanac.com/0230.html How bizarre. I stand duly corrected, and I learnt something new. Thank you for sharing that fascinating piece of information. > In the Soviet Revolutionary Calendar, all months had 30 working days, > and the year was padded out with 5 or 6 "monthless" holidays. The Soviet > Revolutionary Calendar doesn't appear to have actually been used. > > In the French Republican Calendar, all months had 30 days and the year > was padded out with 5 or 6 "monthless" holidays, called sansculottides . > However, the French Republican months don't correspond with the months > of the Gregorian calendar, since its year starts at the autumnal equinox > (September 23 plus or minus 1 day). The French Republican Calendar was deliberately modelled on the ancient Egyptian solar calendar, which also has 12 months of 30 days plus 5 days at the end of the year. The Egyptians didn't bother with leap years and were content to let their calendar slip through the seasons every 1461 years. I imagine that the Soviet Revolutionary Calendar was modelled on the French version. David Harper Cambridge, England