Making the Case for Returning to a 13-Month Calendar [Calendar Reform Blog]

In ancient times, and even in some contemporary societies, calendars were 13 months in length, rather than 12. 

The Sol Calendar proposal would bring back the 13-month calendar, and, aside from the superstitious fear of the number Thirteen, it's very much worth considering.

This calendar reform idea was developed by Jim Eikner of Austin, Texas, and consists of a year of 13 months in length with the first 12 months having 28 days each, and the final month of the year, December, having 29. December would have 30 days in leap years, which line up with the leap years in the Gregorian calendar.

The months are named the same as they are in the Gregorian calendar, except that a month called Sol - named for our Sun - is inserted between June and July, and it is this month that gives the calendar its name.

Although every month within the same year begins on the same day of week, the months begin on different days of the week in different years.

The 13-month Sol Calendar is a new take on a very old idea. It is, in fact, an adaptation of International Fixed Calendar, which in turn has its roots in the Positivist Calendar created by French philosopher August Comte in 1849.

In each year, the 29th and 30th days in December move the first day of the January of the following year either one or two weekdays forward in relation to that previous year. However, within any given year, monthly calendars for January through November remain identical to each other, in that they start on the same day of the week – and of course, are all 28 days in length.

Some of the features and benefits of the 13-month Sol Calendar:

• Twelve contiguous and identical months of exactly 28 days
• The thirteenth month of the year (December) has 29 days normally and 30 days in a leap year
• This calendar has the same names for the months as the Gregorian Calendar
• The new month (Sol) occurs between June and July
• Preserves the standard, 7-day week
• Preserves Gregorian leap year rule
• Almost all professional accounting systems offer a 13-period reporting option
• Computer accounting programs will likely be easily adjusted to 13 months
• Placing the new month (Sol) at mid-year minimizes the seasonal displacement of the traditional months
• Placing the extra day(s) at the end of the year allows all months to be identical for their first 28 days in any given year
• Leap years are every four years (in the same years we currently have leap years) and they add a 366th day to December (a Dec. 30), the same number of days the Gregorian calendar adds during a leap year

Overall, as a practical matter, this calendar effectively addresses some current concerns with the Gregorian calendar.

Unlike our current jumble of month sizes, the Sol Calendar's 28-day months can easily be remembered, and the leap year is more rationally located at the end of the year, rather than tucked after February (which hasn't been considered the end of the year for many centuries.)

Since each month's calendar is the same for the first 11 months (and identical through the 28th day every month) it's easy to remember that the 27th day of every month in 2011, for example, was a Wednesday.

Learn more here: http://www.abbottepub.com/newcal.html

Why isn't our #calendar logical? A simple proposal for reform.

March 1 will be the 60th day of the year. So why can't it be the last day of the second month?

That's the question the 30x11 ("Thirty-eleven") calendar asks. The calendar reform proposal seeks to simplify the Gregorian calendar by giving 11 of the 12 months 30 days each. The last month, December, gets 35, keeping the 365-day calendar year we have now. In leap years (which remain the same as now) we get a 36-day December.

The benefit of this idea is simplicity. With 30 days in each month, it would be easy to determine, say, that the 150th day of the year would be the last day of the 5th month - May 30. In fact, for the first half of the calendar year, the last days of the month are the 30th, 60th, 90th, 120th, 150th, and 180th days of the year. Such numbering allows easy access to any day of the year.

Another quirk of the calendar is that each month within a calendar year starts two weekdays after the previous month. If January, for example, would start on a Sunday (as it does in the 2006 Gregorian calendar) then February begins on a Tuesday, March on a Thursday, April on a Saturday and May on a Monday. It's very easy to determine, therefore, that May 30 would be the 150th day of the month and a Tuesday.

Drawbacks to this proposal are few, and include a "long" December, which would have 35 or 36 days - numbers that are hard to get used to (and some would think we added days to the year's length, which isn't the case) and the seasons would not begin on the same days they do now, but would drift back about two days on the calendar. That doesn't seem too high of a price to pay, however, for a calendar that is more logical and actually makes sense!

For more information, visit www.30x11.com.

The New Earth #Calendar - Making Our Calendar Better!

A truly innovative and noteworthy calendar reform proposal is the New Earth Calendar. It features 13 months of exactly 28 days each. 

It lacks a "leap day" and waits 5 or 6 years and simply adds a "leap WEEK" of 7 days to the year. This keeps the calendar perpetual, while preserving the traditional 7-day week. Keep reading for an official explanation, including other benefits.

(Text below is from the newearthcalendar.com Website.)

"The New Earth Calendar is intended to serve and benefit all the people on Earth. It is not influenced by religion, politics, nationality, race or sex. It simply correlates the relationship between the earth, its rotation and annual journey around the sun. It applies equally to all inhabitants of Earth, and only Earth because it would be meaningless on any other planet, around any other sun or in any other solar system. It is unique to us.

Consider having just one monthly calendar, rather than the 28 in our current system. The New Earth Calendar is a practical refinement of the Gregorian calendar we now use and would eliminate the many inconsistencies that have been perpetuated for more than 2000 years. Thirteen equal months of 28 days. Each quarter has exactly 13 weeks and an equal number of workdays.

Each week, month and year starts on a Monday, never a Sunday. Sunday is the last day of the week and would always be on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of the month. 

Each country will be able to set their holidays in accordance with local custom, but generally, with the exception of Easter, they will always be on a fixed date and day of the week. 

They could be set so as to establish long weekends, but shorten the “dead week” that typically happens between Christmas and New Year’s Day. With The New Earth Calendar and Sundays always on fixed dates, the possible dates for Easter are reduced from around 35 to about 5 or 6."

More at www.30x11.com.

Our #calendar has huge problems. But there's a solution!

Our Gregorian Calendar has a problem. Each month of our current calendar varies in length: 31, 28/29, 31, 30, 31, etc. We have to look at a printed calendar or recite a rhyme to remember month lengths.

Because of this, business quarters are unequal, causing problems for accountants and business owners. Connecting a weekday with a day of the month is now nearly impossible (Quick, what weekday did March 9, 2014 fall on? It was a Sunday. But you had to look at a calendar, or Google it, didn't you?) Determining how many days in each year have passed - and how many we have left - is also not an easy task with the Gregorian.

What's the solution? There are many. One of them that's been suggested is the Thirty-Eleven Calendar.

In this modern calendar reform proposal, each month (the first 11) would have 30 days. December, the 12th, would have 35 days in a regular year, and 36 days in a leap year. (This doesn't change the length of the 365/366-day year.)

This is a "gentle" reform to an old calendar we've become accustomed to, not a radical re-design that will leave people confused and hostile to the change. Previous attempts to reform the calendar changed the number of months, the number of days in the week, or had other radical changes that made them unacceptable to most people.

What advantages does this calendar have over our current one?

It has an easy-to-remember 11 straight months of 30 days each, ending the confusion of variable month lengths. It offers three identical business quarters of 90 days each. It still only has one "leap day," and puts it in December, at the very end of the year.

It allows easy calculation of ordinal days (number of days in the year), since almost almost all months are equal in length and each month starts again after 30 days. March 1 is always the 61st day of the year. June 30 is always 180th. November 15th is always the 345th.

Months also progress in a more logical fashion, with each month within a year's calendar year starting two weekdays later than the previous month did (if January starts on a Monday, February starts on a Wednesday.)

Learn more at www.30x11.com.

New eBook features calendar reform concepts

A new electronic book covers many of the new calendar concepts discussed in this blog over the years.

"A New Calendar for the World" features many excellent calendar reform ideas, set amongst the backdrop of a possible "End of the Age" event in 2012. Whether the age actually will end in 2012 (and the book is neutral on that matter - and in fact barely deals with these predictions) the time may indeed be ripe for a new calendar, as this blog has argued in the past.

Among the ideas floated in the eBook (which costs only $1.99) are:

• The 13-Moon Calendar: Inspired by the Maya
• The Symmetry454 Calendar: Beautiful Symmetry
• The 13-month "Sol" Calendar: Updating an Old Idea
• The New Earth Calendar: A Worthy Hybrid
• The 30x11 Calendar: A Gentle Update of our Calendar

The book also features numerous "experimental" calendars that are more than a useless exercise. They are actually creative, and are good starting points for discussions on how our calendar can serve human beings, and not the other way around.

The e-book is published by Abbott ePublishing and can be bought at http://www.abbottepub.com/newcal.html.

Series on benefits of the 30x11 Calendar starts

A series touting the benefits of the 30x11 Calendar reform proposal has begun at the 30x11 Calendar Yahoo! Group.

It will last for several postings and deal with about a dozen benefits of 
the calendar, which has 11 months of 30 days each, with one month
of 35 or 36 days.

See: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/30x11calendar

June 30 (Gregorian) in six reform proposals

Friday, June 30, 2006 in the Gregorian Calendar is the 181st day of the calendar year.

Here's how that date would be rendered in six prominent reform calendars:

Saturday, June 27, 2006 in the Symmetry454 Calendar.

Saturday, Luna 13, 2006 in the New Earth Calendar.

Friday, Sol 13, 2006 in the 13-Month Sol Calendar.

Friday, July 1, 2006 in the 30x11 Calendar.

Friday, June 29, 2006 in the World Calendar.

Friday, June 30, 2006 in the Common-Civil-and-Time Calendar.

Profile: the 30x11 Calendar - a calendar that makes sense

March 1 was the 60th day of the year. Why wasn't it the last day of the second month?

That's the question the 30x11 ("Thirty-eleven") calendar asks. The calendar reform proposal seeks to simplify the Gregorian calendar by giving 11 of the 12 months 30 days each. The last month, December, gets 35, keeping the 365-day calendar year we have now. In leap years (which remain the same as now) we get a 36-day December.

The benefit of this idea is simplicity. With 30 days in each month, it would be easy to determine, say, that the 150th day of the year would be the last day of the 5th month - May 30. In fact, for the first half of the calendar year, the last days of the month are the 30th, 60th, 90th, 120th, 150th, and 180th days of the year. Such numbering allows easy access to any day of the year.

Another quirk of the calendar is that each month within a calendar year starts two weekdays after the previous month. If January, for example, would start on a Sunday (as it does in the 2006 Gregorian calendar) then February begins on a Tuesday, March on a Thursday, April on a Saturday and May on a Monday. It's very easy to determine, therefore, that May 30 would be the 150th day of the month and a Tuesday.

Drawbacks are few, and include a "long" December, which would have 35 or 36 days - numbers that are hard to get used to - and the seasons would not begin on the same days they do now, but would drift back about two days on the calendar. That doesn't seem too high of a price to pay, however, for a calendar that is more logical.

For more information, visit www.30x11.com.

31, 28, 31, 30

When was Feb. 1? Most would say, "Today, Wednesday." Those who support some calendar reforms say "yesterday, Tuesday," or "this past Sunday."

For proponents of the 30x11 Calendar and the Common-Civil-Calendar, January should have ended on the 30th day of the month, making the 31st their "Feb. 1."

For supporters of the Symmetry454 Calendar, New Earth Calendar, and the 13-month Sol Calendar (and other 13-month, 28-day month proposals,) Sunday, Jan. 29, was the day for welcoming February (though the Symmetry454 and New Earth calendars would have called it a "Monday," since all weeks in these calendars start on Mondays.)

This first Date of Divergence in these calendars represent a call for societal change - a change in how we view the year.

The one message they all convey comes across loud and clear: the Gregorian months - which start 2006 numbered in this fashion: 31, 28, 31, 30 - cry out for symmetry, order and a logical progression of days.

It's not too hard to envision a different, better, way to number our months, thanks to many visionary reformers who have proposed calendar change on a global scale. We should listen to what they have to say.

Calendar News: Drop 12/31? Problem solved?

Professor Dick Henry, the creator of the Common-Civil-Calendar-and-Time Calendar isn't at all worried that he has missed the January 1, 2006 implementation date for his calendar. It would have been a perfect time to adopt it, since it, like the Gregorian year 2006, starts on a Sunday.

He says on his Website: "[I]t is not a big deal. All that needs to be done is to drop 2006 December 31 (that is, rename that day 2007 January 1), and all is well. Similarly, a two-year delay could be easily accommodated by dropping 2007 Dec 30 AND 2007 Dec 31. (The new "last day" of the old year could be celebrated as New Year's Eve.) So, the argument that there is not sufficient time to implement CCC&T just does not hold water."

It's highly unlikely that dates would ever be dropped from the calendar simply to shoehorn in a new version.

I do wonder why he simply didn't suggest waiting until 2012, when January 1 is again a Sunday. It is unlikely his, or any other, new calendar will be adopted quickly.

Welcome to Calendar Reform!

Welcome to the Calendar Reform blog.

Here, we will explore and discuss options for re-working the Gregorian Calendar, which is the current calendar in use throughout most of the world.

We'll talk about why it needs reform, and discuss various options for reforming it.

Please feel free to join in the conversation.

-Stephen A.
moderator