REFORM CALENDARS

The reason for The New Earth Calendar is the belief that in this high tech era, and with man’s ability to measure time with incredible precision, it is appropriate and also way past due for a new user friendly calendar. Many earlier proposals have been made to reform the calendar, each seeking to correct the inherent flaws in the Gregorian calendar but none were met with universal support. In fact, there were about 130 proposals taken to the League of Nations for study in the early part of the last century. Each was rejected for various reasons, but two were given serious consideration as late as the 1950’s by the United Nations.

The World Calendar used a system of 12 months, altering the days in the months as needed to have equal quarters of 31, 30 and 30 days. This yielded a year of 364 days and the required 365th day was called World Day at the end of the year. This last day and the leap year day, which was added in the middle of the year were what is known as “blank days” because they did not have a date or day of the week. Because of this, the World Calendar did not shift dates to different weekdays in successive years and therefore was a perpetual calendar.

The International Fixed Date Calendar was a 13 month calendar proposal. It was also know as the Cotsworth Calendar and the Eastman Calendar (George Eastman of Eastman Kodak fame). They were all similar with 13 months of 28 days each and made up for the needed extra days with blank days, like the World Calendar.

Whether it was just a resistance to change, a fondness for tradition or a problem with the concept of blank days is unknown, but ultimately, none of these calendars were adopted. The blank day concept preserved the perpetual nature of all of these reform calendars, but tended to upset various religious groups by breaking the seven day weekly cycle that has gone on continuously for more than two millennia.

This is where The New Earth Calendar differs. While it is intended as only a civil calendar for government, business and international commerce, the leap week feature will preserve the seven day cycle of weeks that is important to so many. It avoids having more than six days between Sabbaths while at the same time preserving the simplicity and perpetual nature of the calendar.