DAYS OF AULD LANG SYNE . . .

Upon a time, the new year was ushered in at the end of winter, rather than just after it's beginning, as is the case now. Prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752, the English used the Julian calendar, and observed the new year on Lady Day, March 25. Lady Day was the Anglican adpatation of the feast of the Roman church known as the Feast of the Annunciation. December 25th was a day sacred to the cult of Mithras, the most popular cult in the Roman empire at the time of the rise of christianity. The early church leaders adopted a popular pagan feast, and then did some simple-minded "back-calculating" of exactly nine months to create a feast day, the Feast of the Annunciation (Lady Day to the English), alleging that an angel told Mary that she would bear the putative Jesus. This was more cleverness in that the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, very nearly corresponded to March 25th, and the christians were thereby able to co-opt yet another popular pagan feast day. In 1582, the more intelligent of church scholars, taking note of what was then an eight day cumulative error in the calendar, revised it, and the new calendar was known as the Gregorian calendar, in honor of Pope Gregory. The error was actually several years, in fact, despite the Roman efforts to correct the Julian calendar in 8 CE--so that the putative Jesus would in fact have been born in 4 BCE--or, four years "before Christ." Hilarity ensues . . .

When the Gregorian calendar was adopted in England in 1752, Wednesday, September 2, 1752 was succeeded by Thursday, September 14, 1752--making up the cumulative twelve day error in the calendar. A vestige of Lady Day remains in England in that April 6 is the beginning of the first quarter of their tax year (which is to say, Lady Day, March 25, plus the twelve days needed to correct the calendar, yielding April 6).

Many of the Orthodox religions continue to use the Julian calendar, at least as the basis of their liturgical calendars, and for that reason, the Russians were still using the Julian calendar at the beginning of the twentieth century. Therefore, their February revolution, the Russian Revolution (this was succeeded by the Bolshevik Revolution, eight months later), took place in March according to the calendars of the western Allies, who were dismayed to see a revolution which would take the Russians out of the Great War. Eventually, Kerensky's government was pressured into resuming the war against Germany, and the opening was provided for the Bolsheviks to launch a second revolution against Kerensky's government in November. That is, November by the Gregorian calendar--it was October by the Julian calendar, and hence the importance of Krazny Oktyaber (that may be badly spelled, it's difficult to transliterate from a different alphabet), Red October, in Soviet lore.

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When George Washington was born, the English still used the old calendar, so that he was said to have been born on February 11th, 1731. The year was not considered to have changed to 1732 until after Lady Day, and there was at that time an 11 day cumulative error in the Julian calendar. When the English switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, there was by then a twelve day cumulative error, but the conversion was well understood, and Washington's Birthday (long an American holiday) became February 22nd, 1732--as the English also changed to January 1 as New Year's Day at that time.

The significance of Lady Day remained, however. Not simply because of the vernal equinox, it was important in an agrarian nation as the time when planting was done, and when roads began to be passable (in the literal sense) after the end of winter weather. The constitution originally set the first Monday in December as the date upon which Congress would assemble, and this was subject to modification by law. Traditionally, the new President would be sworn in on March 20th, just before what had once been the Lady Day holiday, and the beginning of the farmer's spring quarter. This was a realistic concession to the exigencies of travel in the early days of the Republic, it being unrealistic to expect that a newly elected President's victory could be confirmed by the first Monday in December, or that all of the requisite dignitaries could be expected to assemble at the national capital any sooner than the middle of March. This was finally changed when the XXth Amendment was ratified in January, 1933, setting the new date for the opening of Congress at January 3rd, and setting January 20th as the day for the swearing-in of the new chief magistrate.

Paved roads were almost unknown in North America before the middle of the 19th century. The Valley Turnpike in Virginia, a "Macadam" road, was a notable exception, and Thomas Jackson used it to his advantage in his campaigns with the Confederate Army of the Shenandoah Valley. In Champaign County, Ohio, there is a road known as Macadam Road, but the old plat maps refer to it as "the macadam road"--it was initially a novelty in Ohio, one of the few paved roads in the country. John Loudon MacAdam was responsible for this new road design. He long worked in New York, but returned to Scotland at the end of the American Revolution. His new method was first used on the "National Turnpike" in the United States in 1823--the National Road is now U.S. Route 40, which runs from Baltimore and Washington to St. Louis.

It was only in the 1920s, with the proliferation of the automobile, that states began regularly to pave roads, and began to look to the paving of all roads, as a measure to promote commerce, as well as a convenience for their automobile owning citizens. The railroad had long made it practical for the new Congress to abandon the earlier constitutionally mandated date for a new session, but it appears that hidebound tradition was only embarrassed into change with the spread of paved roads in the country in the late 1920s and the early 1930s--resulting in the XXth Amendment.

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And so now our New Year begins on January 1st, and many of us in the English speaking world shiver through two or three months of winter thereafter before we see spring return (no comments from the antipodean peanut gallery, please). I wish the best to you all in the year to come.