While regarded as one of the world’s most powerful and influential historical figures, Julius Caesar wasn’t an expert on math or the stars above.
With 2020 being a Leap Year—a once-every-four-years manifestation created to deal with our imprecise notion of a year being 365 days—WSU experts looked back on the development of the modern calendar to demonstrate just how far humanity has come in its quest.
Ancient civilizations depended on the cosmos above to guide their decisions, said Michael Allen, a senior instructor in physics and astronomy at WSU.
The need to be prepared for changing seasons and related weather events led to the development of the first calendars, which typically were either solar or lunar-based. Ancient Greeks made a tremendous breakthrough some 2,500 years ago when they calculated the length of a year at 365.25 days.
Meanwhile, during the Roman Republic, the development of the calendar was a process fraught with upheaval, said Nikolaus Overtoom, a clinical assistant professor in Ancient History at WSU.