While our current system of keeping track of time with months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes may seem natural and normal, it is really a bit artificial. There have been some attempts to revise this system so that it makes better sense.
The most radical attempt to change the calendar came in 1793 when the French National Convention established a ‘revolutionary calendar’ to replace the reactionary Gregorian one. Wanting to distance themselves from Christianity, the French declared that the year 1792 of the Christian era would now be year one in the new French Republican calendar. Furthermore, the new year was to begin on what had been September 22 on the old Gregorian calendar.
Having solved the problem of the year, the French now turned the confusing problem of months and weeks. Under the new French system, each month was to have 30 days. No more would there be some months with 30, some with 31, and one with 28. However, this meant that the 360 days in the 12 months with 30 days did not match up with the actual solar years. So, the French simply added five extra days at the end of the year.
The week has been traditionally made up of seven days, but with the 30 day month, this really didn’t work well. Under the new French system, the week was to be 10 days long which meant that there would be three weeks in each month.
Next came the issue of the day which is composed of 24 hours and the hour which is composed of 60 minutes. Wanting to put time-keeping on the decimal system (i.e. a base 10), the French declared that a day was to be composed of 10 hours, each of which would be composed of 100 minutes composed of 100 seconds.
The new French system was not popular outside of France and, after 13 years, France abandoned it and went back to the old system.
There was also another attempt to get away from the Christian calendar in 1929. This time it came from the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin established a new system based on a five-day week: four days of work followed by one day of rest. Each month consisted of six weeks.
How do you feel about our calendar? Should it be changed? Should we use a decimal system?
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