Different calendars
The calendar you use every day isn’t the only kind of calendar. There
are others.
The Hebrew, or Jewish, calendar is used to fix the dates of the Jewish
religious year. It follows both the moon and the sun. There are twelve
months, based on the moon. A thirteenth month, added seven times every
nineteen years, keeps the calendar more or less in time with the
seasons. Also, days are added or taken away to make sure certain holy
days do not fall on certain days of the week. As a result, a Jewish year
can be as short as 353 days or as long as 385 days.
Seven times in every nineteen years, an extra month, Veadar, is put in
between Adar and Nisan. This month has 29 days. At the same time, Adar
is given an extra day.
The Islamic calendar is divided into thirty-year periods. In each period
of thirty years, eleven of the years have one extra day. This extra day
is added to Zulhijjah.
According to tradition, the Hebrew calendar started at the time of
Creation—3,760 years before the birth of Christ. Thus 1980 was the
year 5740 on the Hebrew calendar. It doesn’t work out to the exact month
because the Jewish year begins in September or October, not in January.
Muslims—people who follow the Islamic religion—use a calendar based
on the moon. It has twelve months of 30 or 29 days. Eleven times every
thirty years, an extra day is added. This keeps the calendar in time
with the moon, but not with the seasons.
Because the Islamic year is only 354 or 355 days long, holidays move
backward through the seasons. Each year, a holiday comes about eleven
days sooner. But in thirty-three years it is back where it started.
The year 1 on the Islamic calendar was the year 622 on the Gregorian
calendar. Thus 1980 was the year 1400 on the Islamic calendar.
The Chinese calendar, which also follows the moon, divides the years
into groups of twelve. Each year is named for an animal. The first of
the twelve years is the Year of the Rat. This is followed by the Ox,
Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig.
On the Chinese calendar, 1980 was the Year of the Monkey.
Christian Churches also use the moon to set some holy days. Easter, for
example, can fall any time from March 22 through April 25. The exact
date depends on the moon.
