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that damn horologist Sosigenes and Jesuit Clavius!

45 BC: Mighty Caesar, astronomy and the gods!

New Year’s Day is celebrated on January 1 for the first time in history as the Julian calendar takes effect.
Soon after becoming Roman dictator, Julius Caesar decided that the traditional Roman calendar was in dire need of reform. Introduced around the seventh century B.C., the Roman calendar attempted to follow the lunar cycle but frequently fell out of phase with the seasons and had to be corrected. In addition, the pontifices, the Roman body charged with overseeing the calendar, often abused its authority by adding days to extend political terms or interfere with elections.
In designing his new calendar, Caesar enlisted the aid of Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer, who advised him to do away with the lunar cycle entirely and follow the solar year, as did the Egyptians. The year was calculated to be 365 and 1/4 days, and Caesar added 67 days to 45 B.C., making 46 B.C. begin on January 1, rather than in March.(beware those 'Ides' BBY:dead:) He also decreed that every four years, a day be added to February, thus theoretically keeping his calendar from falling out of step. Shortly before his assassination in (March) 44 B.C., he changed the name of the month Quintilis to Julius (July) after himself.:up: Later, the month of Sextilis was renamed Augustus (August) after his successor.
Celebration of New Year’s Day in January fell out of practice during the Middle Ages, and even those who strictly adhered to the Julian calendar did not observe the New Year exactly on January 1. The reason for the latter was that Caesar and Sosigenes failed to calculate the correct value for the solar year as 365.242199 days, not 365.25 days.:doh: Thus, an 11-minute-a-year error added seven days by the year 1000, and 10 days by the mid-15th century.
The Roman church became aware of this problem, and in the 1570s Pope Gregory XIII commissioned Jesuit astronomer Christopher Clavius to come up with a new calendar. In 1582, the Gregorian calendar was implemented, omitting 10 days for that year and establishing the new rule that only one of every four centennial years should be a leap year. Since then, people around the world have gathered en masse on January 1 to celebrate the precise arrival of the New Year

And there it all is in a 'leaping' nutshell!
One way or another we still worship the Aten: sundisk at 12 o'clock for the horologists at :subsim:! http://demandware.edgesuite.net/aavp...MuseumDial.jpg

1917 - T. E. Lawrence joins the forces of the Arabian sheik Feisal al Husayn, beginning his adventures that will lead him to Damascus by October, 1918.

1943 - Count Claus von Stauffenberg promoted to lt-colonel.

1950 - Ho Chi Minh begins offensive against French troops in Indo China.

1941 - World War II: The U.S. government announces its Liberty ship program to build freighters in support of the war effort.

1942 - WWII: 28 nations at war with Axis powers, pledge no separate peace deals.

1944 - 1st use of helicopters during warfare (British Atlantic patrol).

1496 - Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.

1777 - General George Washington's revolutionary army defeats British forces at Battle of Princeton, NJ.

1833 - Britain seizes control of Falkland Islands in South Atlantic.

1958 - Edmund Hillary reaches South Pole overland.

1847 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.

1961 - Longest recorded strike ends-33 yrs-Danish barbers' assistants.

2010 - The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest building, is officially opened.

1836 - Davy Crockett arrives in Texas, just in time for the Alamo.

1919 - National Socialist Party (Nazi) forms as German Farmers' Party.

1930 - Bonnie Parker meets Clyde Barrow for the first time at Clarence Clay's house.

1971 - Globetrotters lose 100-99 to NJ Reds, ending 2,495-game win streak.

1981 - British police arrest Peter Sutcliffe, a truck driver later convicted of "Yorkshire Ripper" murders of 13 women.

1 of the World's Iconic Franchises (65 photos)

1933: Construction commences on the Golden Gate Bridgehttps://mediacenter.smugmug.com/phot...V87hBCJ-XL.jpg...rumored to be a favorite of the Blue Angels...and hiking Subsim members :D(Thanks Buddahaid) http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/mida...0/DSC02392.jpg http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...6/DSCN3322.jpg http://photos.denverpost.com/2015/01/05/golden-gate-bridge-historic/

1939 - Daily newspaper comic strip "Superman" debuts.

1940 - Mass execution of Poles, committed by Germans in the city of Poznań, Warthegau.

1941 - President Franklin Roosevelt's "4 Freedoms" speech (freedom from speech, worship, want and fear) during US State of Union address.

1987 - Astronomers at University of California see 1st sight of birth of a galaxy.

1916 - In response to pressure from President Wilson, Germany notifies the US State Department that it will abide by strict international rules of maritime warfare.

1944 - US Air Force announces production of 1st US jet fighter, the Bell P-59.

1945 - Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce) reports total German victory in the Ardennes.

1953 - US President Harry Truman announces American development of the hydrogen bomb.

1999 - Impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton begins in the US Senate.

794 - Vikings attacked Lindisfarne Island (Northumberland).

1835 - The United States national debt is 0 for the first and only time.

1940 - Britain's 1st WW II rationing (bacon, butter & sugar).

1974 - Loch Ness Monster "photographed"

1799 - British Prime Minister William Pitt introduces income tax to raise funds for the war against Napoleon.

1941 - 6,000 Jews exterminated in pogrom in Bucharest, Romania.

1941 - Maiden flight by Canada's British-built Avro Lancaster military plane.

1942 - US Joint Chiefs of Staff created.

1969 - First trial flight of Concorde supersonic jetliner, Bristol, England

1839 - Tea from India 1st arrives in UK.

1912 - World's 1st flying boat's maiden flight, (Glenn Curtiss in NY).

1946 - UN General Assembly meets for 1st time (London).

1947 - Greek steamer "Himara" strikes a wartime mine in Saronic Gulf south of Athens with loss of 392 of 637 aboard.

1879 - Zulu war against British colonial rule in South Africa begins.

1944 - Crakow-Plaszow Concentration Camp established.

1964 - 1st government report warning by US Surgeon General Luther Terry reports that smoking may be hazardous.

1628 was born Charles Perrault

1916 - Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke receive the Pour le Merite, the German Empire's highest military award, for achieving eight aerial victories each over Allied aircrafts.

1937 - Plow for laying submarine cable patented.

1945 - German forces in Belgium retreat in Battle of Bulge.

1967 - Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.