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| Horoscope |
HoroscopeIn astrology, a horoscope is a chart or diagram representing the positions of the planets, other celestial bodies, and sensitive angles at the time of any event, such as a person's birth. The term horoscope is derived from Greek words meaning, "a look at the hours." Other commonly used names for the horoscope in English include natal chart, natus, birth chart, astrological chart, astro-chart, celestial map, sky-map, nativity, cosmogram, Vitasphere, soulprint, radical chart, radix, or simply chart, among others.
natal chart) - Y2K Chart -- This particular chart is calculated for January 1, 2000 at 12:01:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time in New York City, New York, USA. (Longitude: 074W00'23" - Latitude: 40N42'51")]]
Introduction
Opinions about the validity of astrology, or its classification as a pseudoscience, vary. ...are considered in the...to erect a formatted horoscope. This diagram, called a chart, is a stylized map of the heavens. The Sun or the Earth is placed in the centre (depending on whether the ephemeris was heliocentric or geocentric) with the remaining elements around the outside: the planets, the lunar nodes, the ascendant and midheaven, and the houses. Then the angles between the planets are determined. These angles are the astrological aspects. Different systems of tri-secting arcs produce houses of different size.
In common usage, the word horoscope also refers to the astrologer's interpretation of the astrological chart.
In particular, many newspapers and magazines carry horoscope columns, describing planetary positions and influences for the various astrological signs. Most astrologers regard those as nearly worthless, since a horoscope is actually highly personalized, and cannot be generalized to thousands of readers.
A definition of a horoscope is: the illustration of the position of the sun, moon, and planets from a given location on earth, usually at birth. Which simply means, where everything in the universe was in relation to everything else when a person was born.
The earliest known horoscope was from 409 B.C. where it started to spread in the East with the conquerors of the Roman Empire. From there, it started spreading all the way across to Western Europe, where it was almost considered a science itself by all learned people.
How to cast a horoscope
In order to understand and visualize the spherical geometry of the construction of a horoscope, we need to begin with some basic terms.
The techniques described here belong to western astrology.
# The native refers to the time and place of the event being charted, and considered to be at the centre of the celestial sphere. This term is a general one that includes not only birth times as they are commonly understood, but any event for which a horoscope may be drawn.
# The celestial sphere is a sphere of arbitrary radius upon which the items appearing on the horoscope are projected without regard to their distance from the native.
# The plane of the equator is the plane of the earth's equator projected into space.
# The plane of the ecliptic is defined by the orbits of the earth and the sun. For practical purposes the plane of the equator and the plane of the ecliptic maintain a constant inclination to each other of approximately 23.5°.
# The plane of the horizon is centred on the native, and is tangential to the earth at that point. In a sphere whose radius is infinitely large this plane may be treated as nearly equivalent to the parallel plane with its centre at the earth's center. This greatly simplifies understanding the geometry of the horoscope. Some writers on astrology have considered the effects of parallax, but most would agree that (apart from that of the Moon) they are relatively minor, and are beyond the scope of this article.
# The axis of the plane of the horizon has end points above, the zenith, and below, the nadir.
# The zodiac refers to a band on the celestial sphere containing the signs. It is centered on the ecliptic, and its width is sufficient to allow for the fact that the orbits of the moon and all other planets are not parallel to the plane of the ecliptic. It is approximately 18º wide.
# The medium coeli or mid-heaven is the point on the ecliptic that is furthest above the plane of the horizon; its opposite point is known as the imum coeli. For events occurring where the planes of the eccliptic and the horizon coincide the limiting position for these points is at 90º from the ascendant.
# The ascendant is the eastern point where the ecliptic and horizon intersect. Its opposite point in the west is the descendant. In draughting a horoscope the ascendant is traditionally placed as the left-hand side point of the chart. During the course of a day, because of the earth's rotation, the entire circle of the ecliptic will pass through the ascendant and will be advanced by about 1º. This provides us with the term rising sign, which is the sign of the zodiac on the native's ascendant.
# The sun sign is the sign of the zodiac in which the sun is located for the native. This is the single astrological fact most familiar to people. If an event occurs at sunrise the ascendant and sun sign will be the same; other rising signs can then be estimated at approximately two hour intervals from there.
# The houses are a series of twelve divisions of the plane of the ecliptic. Astrologers have devised at least nine different ways of calculating these house divisions. Just as this article does not seek to discuss the validity of astrology, it is also beyond its scope to attempt to resolve questions which may be disputed among astrologers. The use of a particular system of house division is often more a result of what calculations are available than of any conscious consideration of one system's merits over that of another. Similarly, explanations in this article based on the Equal House System are not meant to give any theoretical preference to that system; it is simply the system whose geometry is easiest to understand. In the case of the Equal House System the ecliptic is divided into twelve equal houses of 30º each. The first house begins at the ascendant and the others are numbered counterclockwise from that point. The first six are therefore below the horizon, and the other six are above. The positions of these houses remains fixed relative to the native. The signs and planets all move through the twelve houses during the course of a day, and the planets move through the signs over the course of months or years.
# Most Western Astrologers use the Tropical Zodiac in which the astrological year begins with the vernal equinox, when the sun crosses the celestial equator and enters the zodiac sign of Aries. Many students confuse the difference between Sidereal Constellations and Zodiac Signs. Because of a "wobble" in the earth's axis of rotation over a period of about 26,000 years the point at which the vernal equinox advances in the sky rate is 0 deg, 0 min, 50.23 secs a year. Precession of the equinox is roughly 5 minutes of a degree every 6 years. Sidereal Astrologers use constellations, though there's no validating research for this preference. Tropical Astrologers use Zodiac Signs rather than arbitrary constellations.
# A cusp is the boundary between two signs or houses. For some the cusp includes a small portion of the two signs or houses under consideration.
The chart thus begins with a framework of 12 houses. Upon this the signs of the zodiac are superimposed. In an equal house system the cusp between any two houses will fall at the same degree for each of the signs. Thus for a native whose ascendant is at 12º of Leo, the second house will begin at 12º of Virgo, the third at 12º Libra, and so on. In house systems that take into consideration the effects of the angle of intersection between the planes of the horizon and the ecliptic, the calculations are more complicated. For these calculations it is essential to know the latitude of the event. Tables are available for these calculations, but they are now normally calculated by computer. Most computer programs allow the user to choose from a variety of house systems. The most commonly used is the Placidus house system, though most research Astrologers find that the Koch domification system gets best results.
Longitude is also necessary in order to determine the position of the ascendant. This is because charts use Local Time. Time zones were developed in the 19th century as a by-product of the development of railways. This permitted train schedules to be written based on the certainty that any two places in a time zone used the same time. In reality there is an hour's difference between points at the beginning and end of a 15º average time zone. For political reasons the time zones cannot all be the same size. It would not be practical for a time zone boundary to cut through the middle of a town or small country. Time zone boundaries were also the subject of political manipulation in the Pacific islands when they sought to be the first places on earth to see the new millennium. Adjustments are therefore made for the difference in one's actual longitude and the longitude of the nominal meridian associated with clock time.
railways as most commonly used in Western Astrology]]
Having established the relative positions of the signs in the houses, the horoscopist positions the sun, moon and planets at their rightful celestial longitudes. Some astrologers also take note of minor planetary bodies, fixed stars, asteroids (for example, Chiron) and other mathematically calculated points and angles such as the Ascendant (ASC), the MC, the DC, and the IC, the Vertex, Equatorial Ascendant, etc. Many astrologers also use what are commonly referred to as Arabic Parts (or Greek Lots), the most famous of which is the Part of Fortune (Pars Fortuna).
To complete the horoscope the astrologer will consider the aspects or relative angles between pairs of planets. Certain aspects are considered more important than others. Those generally recognized by the astrological community are Conjunction (0º), Opposition (180º), Square (90º), Trine (120º), Sextile (60º), Semi-Square (45º), Sesqisquare (135º), and Quincunx (150º). Other aspects are used by some astrologers. Understandably these aspects are more significant when they are exact, but they are considered to function within an orb of influence, the size of which varies according to the importance of each aspect. Thus conjunctions are believed to operate with a larger orb than sextiles. Most modern astrologers use an orb of 8º or less for aspects involving the Sun, Moon, and Jupiter; and smaller orbs for the other points.
Reference: Dona Marie Lorenz, Tools of Astrology: houses, Topanga, Eomega Grove Press, 1973
Category:Astrology category:divination
Astrology) - Y2K Chart — This particular chart is calculated for January 1, 2000 at 12:01:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time in New York City, New York, USA. (Longitude: 074W00'23" - Latitude: 40N42'51"), using the tropical zodiac]]
Astrology (from Greek:
αστρολογία = άστρον, astron, "star" + λόγος, logos, "word") is any of several traditions or systems in which knowledge of the apparent positions of celestial bodies is held to be useful in understanding, interpreting, and organizing knowledge about reality and human existence on earth. All traditions are based on the relative positions and movements of various real and construed celestial bodies as seen at the time and place of the birth or other event being studied. These are chiefly the Sun, Moon, planets, Ascendant & Midheaven axes, and the lunar nodes. A practitioner of astrology is called an astrologer, or sometimes an astrologist. Astromancy, divination by the stars, is a slightly archaic synonym for astrology (likewise for astromancer and the rather rarely used astromancist).
Many of those who practice astrology believe the positions of certain celestial bodies relative to the Earth either influence or correlate with people's personality traits, important events in their lives, illnesses, and relationships. Astrologers maintain that the cosmos of which the Earth is a part, runs in cycles and patterns. In fact, those practicing astrology learn at the start that astrology is a very serious study of cycles in time.
Serious astrology is an applied science not to be confused with "sun-sign astrology" - the popularized entertainment form of astrology. Judicial Astrologers, or true classical scientific astrologers, do not separate from astronomy, the scientific study of outer space. Known as "judges of the heavens" - judicial astrologers rank among the most well-known astronomers, mathematicians and medical doctors in human history, and include such names as Hippocrates, Copernicus, Nostradamus, Brahe, Johann Kepler, Galileo, William Lilly and Isaac Newton, the inventor of calculus.
The origin of astrology included astronomy and both were combined as one as an applied science before the emergence of materialist conventional scientists in the 18th Century. Judicial astrologers were considered masters of the art and applied science of astrology and were much sought-after mathematicians and astrological forecasters by royalty and the wealthy. One of the first uses of astrology was in predicting the weather using astrometeorology - a branch of judicial astrology.
Judicial astrologers were once called prophets or seers and one of the earliest known astrologers was a prophet of the Bible called Abraham, also believed to be the inventor of the Chaldean Alphabet.
Claudius Ptolemy, the Second Century A.D. judicial astrologer who is considered the father of western astrology, declared that prediction of events was only possible through the union of two factors: first, correct mathematical calculations of the positions and motions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars. Second, a prophetic spirit derived from God by which their configurations can be correctly interpreted by certain inspired human beings known as judicial astrologers.
Many judicial astrologers practiced as teachers, medicial doctors and strategists and were known for their strict astrological principles and ability to forecast the future. Today, judicial astrologers are rare due to the false popularization of sun-sign astrology; however, those who do practice judicial astrology are known to be very accurate forecasters and astute observers of celestial movements relative to the Earth. It is said that nothing forecast by a judicial astrologer should ever be taken lightly due to the seriousness of practice and qualifications to become a judicial astrologer.
The calculations performed in applied Astrology involve complex arithmetic that include Algebra, Geometry and Trigonometry - mathematical techniques invented by judicial astrologers. Astrologers calculate the positions of the planets and stars relative to the Earth and serve to locate the apparent location of heavenly bodies on desired dates and times based on tables of planets - also known as an scientific ephemeris.
The opinion of the conventional materialistic scientific community is that astrology is superstition, with no actual predictive ability; yet, conventional scientists cannot account for the numerous accurate forecasts of astrologers throughout the centuries using the principles of judicial astrology.
The core principles of astrology reflect a general principle, which was accepted in the ancient world, that events in the heavens have analogies on Earth. In places, such as ancient China and Babylon, the apparently untoward movement of a comet across the otherwise orderly movement of the heavens was taken as a portent of disaster. Such ancient beliefs are epitomized in the Hermetic maxim: As Above, So Below. The famous astronomer/astrologer Tycho Brahe also used a similar phrase to justify his studies in astrology: Suspiciendo despicio — "By looking up I see downward."
Description
In past centuries astrology often relied on close observation of astronomical objects, and the charting of their movements, and might be considered a protoscience in this regard. In modern times astrologers have tended to rely on data drawn up by astronomers and set out in a set of tables called an ephemeris, which shows the changing positions of the heavenly bodies through time. It is the interpretation of these science based tables that makes astrology a target for the label pseudoscience.
Central to all astrology is the horoscope. This is a diagrammatic representation in two dimensions of the celestial bodies' apparent positions in the heavens from the vantage of a location on Earth at a given time and place. The horoscope of an individual's birth is called a natal chart (other names for this diagram in English include natus, nativity, astrological chart, astro-chart, celestial map, birth chart, sky-map, cosmogram, vitasphere, soulprint, radical chart, radix, or simply chart).
The path of the sun across the heavens as seen from Earth during a full year is called the ecliptic by astronomers. This, and the nearby band of sky followed by the visible planets is called the zodiac by astrologers. A few Western and all Jyotish (Hindu) astrologers use the sidereal zodiac, which uses the true astronomical positions of the stars and constellations which lie on the ecliptic. The majority of Western astrologers base their work on the tropical zodiac, which aligns with the seasons but not with the actual positions of the stars.
To determine the astrological signs in which the Sun, Moon, and the other celestial bodies fall on any given day, hour, minute, or second, it is necessary to consult an ephemeris or use an astrological computer program which will have a built-in ephemeris.
Computer programs make it easy to calculate the horoscope so that the modern astrologer can spend more time interpreting the chart rather than calculating it. The consequence is that it is now possible for some to practice astrology with little understanding of celestial mechanics.
Interpretation of a horoscope/natal chart is governed by:
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- astrological aspects: the positions of the major planetary bodies relative to each other,
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- their positions relative to the astrological signs of one of the zodiac sytems,
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- their position in one of the systems of astrological houses,
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- their positions relative to the horizon line (namely the ascendant/descendant axes, zenith/midheaven and nadir/immum coeli axes),
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- the position of deduced astronomical entities, namely the Moon's nodes.
Significant traditions of astrology include but are not limited to:
:
- Western astrology (using the tropical zodiac),
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- Chinese astrology,
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- Jyotish (Vedic astrology,
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- Western sidereal astrology), (using the sidereal zodiac).
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- Mesoamerican astrology,
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- Tibetan astrology, and
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- Kabbalistic astrology.
Some of these can also be subdivided into specific branches, such as
:
- natal astrology (the study of a person's birth, or natal chart),
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- horary astrology (a chart drawn up to answer a specific question), and
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- electional astrology (a chart drawn up ahead of time to determine the best moment to begin an enterprise or undertaking).
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- medical astrology (using the client's natal chart and/or a horary chart to diagnose and treat various illnesses)
Other areas of specialized astrological study are
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- Mundane astrology that sees correlations between geological phenomena (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.) and astronomical phenomena.
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- Political astrology , is the ancient branch of astrology dealing with politics, and government.
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- Meteorological astrology uses methods which are supposed to be able to predict the weather.
History of astrology
The study of Western astrology and the belief in it, as part of astronomy, is found in a developed form among the ancient Babylonians; and directly or indirectly through the Babylonians, it spread to other nations. It came to Greece about the middle of the 4th century BC, and reached Rome before the opening of the Christian era. For a detailed description, including astrology in other cultures, see the main article.
The validity of astrology
Astrology is a very controversial subject. The case for and the case against astrology's objective validity are discussed more fully at Validity of astrology.
Some astrologers argue that astrology works by a mechanism that is (yet) unknown to science and that it is validated by their personal experience when applied in real life cases. They argue that it does not make the hard predictions that science would require but informs the user of subtleties to decisions that would otherwise be missed.
Skeptics see astrology as repeatedly failing to demonstrate its effectiveness in controlled studies and see those who continue to use and believe in it as gullible and deluded, or even as charlatans.
charlatan]]
Effects on world culture
Astrology has had a profound influence over the past few thousand years on Western and Eastern cultures, along with the English language. Influenza was so named because doctors once believed it to be caused by unfavorable planetary and stellar influences. The word "disaster" comes from the Latin "dis-aster" meaning "bad star". Also, the adjectives "lunatic" (Moon), "mercurial" (Mercury), "martial" (Mars), "jovial" (Jupiter/Jove), and "saturnine" (Saturn) are all old words used to describe personal qualities said to resemble or be highly influenced by the astrological characteristics of the planet, some of which are derived from the attributes of the ancient Roman gods they are named after.
Astrology as a descriptive language for the mind
Many writers, notably William Shakespeare [http://www.chartplanet.com/html/shakespeare.html], used astrological symbolism to add subtlety to the description of their characters' motivation. An understanding of astrological principles is needed to fully appreciate such literature, along with the work of many other writers and poets of this and many other eras. Some modern thinkers, notably Carl Jung, have acknowledged its descriptive powers of the mind without necessarily subscribing to its predictive claims.
Astrology and the classical elements
Astrology has used the concept of classical elements from antiquity up until the present. Most modern astrologers use the four classical elements extensively, and indeed it is still viewed as a critical part of interpreting the astrological chart.
Astrology and alchemy
Alchemy in the Western World and other locations where it was widely practiced was (and in many cases still is) closely allied and intertwined with traditional Babylonian-Greek style astrology; in numerous ways they were built to complement each other in the search for hidden knowledge. Traditionally, each of the seven planets in the solar system as known to the ancients was associated with, held dominion over, and ruled a certain metal.
A separate article also exists on astrology and numerology.
The seven liberal arts and astrology
In medieval Europe, a university education was divided into seven distinct areas, each represented by a particular planet and known as the Seven Liberal Arts. They were seen as operating in ascending order, beginning with Grammar which was assigned to the quickest moving celestial body (the Moon) and culminating in Astronomia which was thought to be astrologically ruled by Saturn, the slowest moving and furthest out planet known at the time. After this sequence wisdom was supposed to have been achieved by the medieval university student.
Dante Alighieri used the following associations of the seven liberal arts to the seven traditional astrological planets in the Divine Comedy and Convivio.
- Astronomia — Saturn
- Geometry — Jupiter
- Arithmetic — Mars
- Music — Sun
- Rhetoric — Venus
- Dialectic — Mercury
- Grammar — Moon
Astrology and the Days of the Week
Each day of the week was created in honor of one of the seven celestial bodies (the Sun, Moon, and five known planets); and in ancient astrology, each day of the week was said to be influenced by the traits of the celestial body it was named after. The system was symmetrical and free of complication until the discovery of Uranus in 1781.
The English names, other than the obvious Sunday and Monday ("Moonday"), are taken from the Teutonic deities that were correlated with the Roman deities that were associated with the planets that the days were named after.
The days of the week and celestial bodies they are named after are:
- Sunday — Sun
- Monday — Moon
- Tuesday — Mars
- Wednesday — Mercury
- Thursday — Jupiter
- Friday — Venus
- Saturday — Saturn
You can learn more about planetary linguistics on [http://www.nineplanets.org/days.html this site].
See also
- List of astrologers
- Accidental dignity
- Age of Aquarius
- Ascendant (AC, ASC)
- Ascending planet
- Astrolabe
- Astrological age
- Astrological symbol
- Astrology and astronomy
- Astrology and computers
- Birthday
- Celestial mechanics
- Cosmobiology
- Cycle studies
- Descendant (DC)
- Forer effect
- Hamburg School of Astrology
- Harmonic Charts
- House (astrology)
- Immum Coeli (IC)
- Jewish views of astrology
- List of cycles
- Lunation
- Lunar node
- Lunar phase
- Magi
- The Mars effect
- Medical astrology
- Medium Coeli/Midheaven (MC)
- Midpoint
- Monen
- Music of the spheres
- Mysticism
- New age
- Nadi astrology
- Orbital period
- Planets in astrology
- Predictions for the forthcoming year
- Ptolemy
- Ray of Creation
- Rose Cross and Astrology
- Ruling planet
- Saturn Return
- Sidereal astrology
- Skepticism
- Solar deity
- Solar symbol
- Solar system
- Sporalogy
- Superstition
- Synchronicity
- Syncretism
- The Combination of Stellar Influences
- Three Wise Men
- Tropical year
- Uranian astrology
- Vertex
- Western mystery tradition
External links
;History
- [http://www.skyscript.co.uk/ Skyscript — Classical Astrology] - A modern yet faithful look at Classical astrology.
- [http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeIV/astrology.htm Astrology: Between Religion and the Empirical] - A serious academic treatise on astrology by Dr. Gustav-Adolf Schoener and translated by Shane Denson.
- [http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/astr-hel.htm Hellenistic Astrology] - An Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry outlining the development of Hellenistic astrology and its interaction with philosophical schools.
- [http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Articles/1995-12romance_in_stars.htm The real romance in the stars] - A critical view of astrology by Richard Dawkins.
- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA
- /Astrologia.html Astrologia] - Article in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
- [http://www.mountainman.com.au/astrology_01.htm The Scientific Basis of Astrology, Dr Percy Seymour] - Book Review.
- [http://www.templeofsolomon.org/pageone.htg/pageone.htm The Astrological Star Of Bethlehem] - How the Magi (astrologers) knew of the birth of Christ
- [http://the_mystic_light.tripod.com/mph_astrology.htm The Devolution and Evolution of Astrology] - Article by American mystic Manly Palmer Hall
;Schools
- [http://www.kepler.edu Kepler College of Astrological Arts and Sciences] - Based in Seattle, USA, Kepler College is the only college in the western hemisphere authorized to issue A.A., B.A., and M.A degrees in Astrological Studies.
- [http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/sophia/ The Sophia Centre] Based near Bath, England, the Centre is a department of School of Historical and Cultural Studies at Bath Spa University College. Funded by the Sophia Trust, the Centre teaches an innovative MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and supervises postgraduate research.
- [http://www.astrology.org.uk/ Faculty of Astrological Studies] - Founded on 7th June 1948 in London, England at 19.50 BST; its Diploma, the D.F.Astrol.S., is among the most highly valued and recognised international qualifications.
;Validity
- [http://www.astrofaces.com Astrofaces Research Project] The Astrofaces project seeks to verify astrology with photographs grouped by the sun, moon and ascendant signs. Do people who share the three most prominent factors in the chart resemble each other?
- [http://www.astrology-and-science.com/ Astrology and Science] - A series of articles in which believers and skeptics debate the merits of astrology.
- [http://www.skepsis.nl/astrot.html The Astrotest] - An account of a test of the predictive power of astrology, with references to some other experiments.
- [http://www.discord.org/~lippard/kammann.html The True Disbelievers] by Richard Kamann and Marcello Truzzi is a report of alleged internal events at CSICOP regarding their own claimed confirmation of M. Gauquelin's 'Mars Effect'
- [http://skepdic.com/astrolgy.html The Skeptic's Dictionary on astrology] and [http://skepdic.com/mars.html the Mars effect]
- [http://www.lightlink.com/vic/astrol.html An Astrophysicist's Sympathetic and Critical View of Astrology] - by Victor Mansfield.
- [http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=59 Proof of Astrology?] - A critical look at Percy Seymour's books.
- [http://cura.free.fr/decem/09seym.html The Magus of Magnetism: How Planetary Motion Orchestrates Solar Activity and Geomagnetism] - An interview with Percy Seymour by Bronwyn Elko.
- [http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/astrology.html Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions: Astrology] - an "attempt to show that astrology has no basis in reality whatsoever", by Philip Plait
;Comparision with other thought systems
- [http://www.spirithome.com/parastro.html Astrology, the Zodiac, Horoscopes and Planetary Alignment].
- [http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_astro_sci_pseudo.htm Is Astrology A Pseudoscience?]
- [http://www.imprint.co.uk/pdf/Dean.pdf Academic Journal of Consciousness Studies: Is Astrology Relevant to Consciousness and Psi?]
- [http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/~bclarke/AST199M/Astrology.htm The Historical Foundations of Astrology]
- [http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/index.shtml Dane Rudhyar Archival Project -- Wholeness, Music, Astrology, Theosophy, Art, etc.]
- [http://www.robertezoller.com/ Robert Zoller -- Medieval Astrology]
- [http://www.noeltyl.com/menu.shtml Noel Tyl -- Contemporary Astrology]
- [http://www2.bitstream.net/~bunlion/bpi/AstrRoot.html Current Trends in Astrology]
- [http://finblake.home.mindspring.com/UranBeacon.htm A Comprehensive Uranian Astrology Website]
- [http://www.sabian.org/ssorigin.htm Sabian Symbols (originated by Marc Edmund Jones and Elsie Wheeler)]
- [http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/astdiv/2.html Astrology in Ancient History]
;Tools
- [http://alabe.com/freechart/ Astrolabe Software] - Calculate your personal natal chart or any astrological chart for free using this simple online calculation form.
- [http://www.astrologyweekly.com/dictionary/ A Comprehensive Astrological Dictionary] -- Use this to look up many common astrological terms, both in ancient and modern astrology.
- [http://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm Astrolog 5.40] - Home of the freeware astrology program Astrolog 5.40.
- [http://uk.geocities.com/astrolog32/ Astrolog32] - Home of the freeware astrology program Astrolog32.
- [http://www.halloran.com/astwin23.htm Astrology for Windows Public domain astrology software].
- [http://www.khaldea.com/ephemcenter.shtml The Original 3,000 Year High-Precision Daily Astrological Online Ephemeris from Khaldea.com] -- 600BC to 2400AD -- Calculated for Midnight GMT; also with an Aspectarian included for years 1900 to 2005
- [http://skyscript.co.uk/aspects.html Classical Use of the Astrological Aspects] - Learn all about the astrological aspects at this site.
- [http://www.astrowin.org/ Astrowin - Free Astrology Calculation Programs] - Astro123, AstroWin, MatchMkr, and more.
- [http://chronosxp.sourceforge.net ChronosXP] - Free Planetary Hours software for Windows
- [http://www.robhand.com/ Classical Astrology Archives]
- [http://free-horoscopes.typepad.com Astrology software] - Programs for making [http://free-horoscopes.typepad.com horoscopes].
- [http://ephemeral.info/too/ ephemeral.info Tools] - Many free web-based tools for looking up information about various celestial objects.
- [http://www.rosicrucianfellowship.org/software.htm RFIntrep, RFAstro, RF ACSS & RF PHour] free software & online free [http://www.rosicrucian.com/asthtme1.htm Rosicrucian Astrology book library]
- [http://www.bodysoulspiritexpo.com/enewsplus/enewsarc.php3?action=category&id=4 Astrological Articles Open Postings] Open Community Knowledge Base for astrologers to submit articles on astrological related subjects.
;Western astrology natal reports
- [http://www.astro.com/ http://www.astro.com/] -- Astrodienst (available in 8 languages)
- [http://astrology.newkerala.com/ http://astrology.newkerala.com/]
- [http://www.widgetsworld.co.uk/ http://www.widgetsworld.co.uk/]
- [http://www.astrologie-info.com/indexe.cgi http://www.astrologie-info.com/] -- Astrology Info: Natal chart in graphic/text mode and Interactive Moon calendar
;Natal reports for other systems
- [http://www.lunarcal.org/ http://www.lunarcal.org]
- [http://www.suzannewhite.com/newastrology/index.shtml http://www.suzannewhite.com]
- [http://www.onereed.com/ http://www.onereed.com/]
- [http://www.astrodreamadvisor.com/free_mayan_readings.html# http://www.astrodreamadvisor.com]
- [http://www.chaosastrology.com/ http://www.chaosastrology.com/]
Category:Esoteric cosmology
Category:Esotericism
ko:점성술
ja:占星術
th:โหราศาสตร์
Greek language
Greek (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA – "Hellenic") is an Indo-European language with a documented history of 3,500 years. Today, it is spoken by 15 million people in Greece, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, particularly The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Turkey. There are also many Greek emigrant communities around the world, such as those in Melbourne, Australia which is the third-largest Greek-populated city in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki.
Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet, the first true alphabet, since the 9th century B.C. and before that, in Linear B and the Cypriot syllabaries.
Greek literature has a long and rich tradition.
History
This article does not cover the reconstructed history of Greek prior to the use of writing. For more information, see main article on Proto-Greek language.
Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest evidence of this is found in the Linear B tablets dating from 1500 BC. The later Greek alphabet (q.v.) is unrelated to Linear B, and was derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods:
- Mycenean Greek: the language of the Mycenean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 16th century BC onwards.
- Classical Greek (also known as Ancient Greek): In its various dialects was the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman empire. Classical Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained known in the Byzantine world, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration to Italy.
- Hellenistic Greek (also known as Koine Greek): The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with Attic (the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which gradually turned into one of the world's first international languages. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic colonisation of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial diglossy of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. Through Koine Greek it is also traced the origin of Christianity, as the Apostles used it to preach in Greece and the Greek-speaking world. It is also known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical Greek or even New Testament Greek (after its most famous work of literature).
- Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and vernacular (if not the literary nor the ecclesiastic) language of the Byzantine Empire, and continued to be used until, and after the fall of that Empire in the 15th century. Also known as Byzantine Greek.
- Modern Greek: Stemming independently from Koine Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century).
Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévousa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is now the official language of the modern Greek state, and the most widely spoken by Greeks today.
It has been claimed that an "educated" speaker of the modern language can understand an ancient text, but this is surely as much a function of education as of the similarity of the languages. Still, Koinē , the version of Greek used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint, is relatively easy to understand for modern speakers.
Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages: astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary. See English words of Greek origin, and List of Greek words with English derivatives.
Classification
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, Ancient Macedonian language (which may be regarded as a dialect of Greek) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Among living languages, Armenian seems to be the most closely related to it.
Geographic distribution
Modern Greek is spoken by about 15 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus. There are also Greek-speaking populations in Georgia, Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, Albania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Southern Italy. The language is spoken also in many other countries where Greeks have settled, including Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Official status
Greek is the official language of Greece where it is spoken by about 99.5% of the population. It is also, alongside Turkish, the official language of Cyprus. Due to the membership of Greece and Cyprus, Greek is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union.
Phonology
This section generally describes the post-Classic phonology of the Greek language.
:All phonetic transcriptions in this section use the International Phonetic Alphabet
Vowel sounds
Greek has 5 vowel sounds, all phonemic:
Y2KThe year 2000 problem (also known as the Y2K problem and the millennium bug) was a flaw in computer program design that caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and times on and after January 1, 2000. It turned into a major fear that critical industries (electricity, financial, etc.) and government functions would stop working at 12:00 AM, January 1, 2000, and at other critical dates which were billed as "event horizons". This fear was fueled by huge amounts of press coverage and speculation, as well as copious official corporate and government reports. All over the world companies and organizations checked and upgraded their computer systems. The preparation for Y2K had a significant effect on the computer industry.
In the end, significant disasters such as nuclear reactor meltdowns or plane crashes did not occur, but the number of non-critical Y2K errors encountered on January 1, 2000 was extensive. Due to the lack of disasters and the faulty "end of the world" expectations, the public largely, but perhaps wrongly, regarded the Y2K passage as a non-event.
Background
Y2K (or Y2k) was the common slang for the year 2000 problem. The abbreviation combines the letter Y for "year", and K for the Greek prefix kilo meaning 1000; hence, 2K means 2000. It also went by millennium bug, although there is a popular debate on whether the year 2000 was actually the start of the new millennium. It is also said that the bug is technically a glitch.
The term was coined on June 12, 1995 in an e-mail sent by a 52-year old Massachusetts programmer named David Eddy. He later said, "People were calling it CDC (Century Date Change) and FADL (Faulty Date logic). There were other contenders. It just came off my fingertips."
It was thought computer programs could stop working or produce erroneous results because they stored years with only two digits and that the year 2000 would be represented by 00 and would be interpreted by software as the year 1900. This would cause date comparisons to produce incorrect results. It was also thought that embedded systems, making use of similar date logic, might fail and cause utilities and other crucial infrastructure to fail.
In the years prior to 2000, some corporations and governments, when they did testing to determine the extent of the potential impact, reported that some of their critical systems really would need significant repairs or risk serious breakdowns. Throughout 1997 and 1998, there were news reports about major corporations and industries that had made uncertain estimates as to their preparedness. The vagueness of these reports, and the apparent uncertainty regarding what sort of breakdowns were possible—and the fact that literally hundreds of billions of dollars were reportedly spent in remediation efforts—were a major part of the reason for the public fear.
Special committees were set up by governments to monitor remedial work and contingency planning, particularly by crucial infrastructures such as telecommunications, utilities and the like, to ensure that the most critical services had fixed their own problems and were prepared for problems with others.
By early- to mid-1999, when the same corporations, industry organizations, and governments were claiming to be largely prepared, the public relations damage had been done.
It was only the safe passing of the main "event horizon" itself, January 1, 2000, that fully quelled public fears.
In North America the actions taken to remedy the possible problems did have unexpected benefits. Many businesses installed computer backup systems for critical files. The September 11th attacks destroyed hundreds of offices in the World Trade Center, potentially crippling vast segments of the economy. Fortunately most of the offices had purchased backup servers in New Jersey and elsewhere, limiting the devastation of the attacks. The Y2K preparations further had impact on August 14, 2003 during the 2003 North America blackout. The previous activities had included the installation of new electrical generation equipment and systems which allowed for a relatively rapid restoration of power in some areas.
The programming problem
The underlying programming problem was quite real. In the 1960s, computer memory and storage were scarce and expensive, and most data processing was done on punch cards which represented text data in 80-column records. Programming languages of the time, such as COBOL and RPG, processed numbers in their ASCII or EBCDIC representations. They occasionally used an extra bit called a "zone punch" to save one character for a minus sign on a negative number, or compressed two digits into one byte in a form called binary-coded decimal, but otherwise processed numbers as straight text. Over time the punch cards were converted to magnetic tape and then disk files and later to simple databases like ISAM, but the structure of the programs usually changed very little. Popular software like dBase continued the practice of storing dates as text well into the 1980s and 1990s.
Saving two characters for every date field was significant in the 1960s. Since programs at that time were mostly short-lived affairs programmed to solve a specific problem, or control a specific hardware-setup, most programmers of that time did not expect their programs to remain in use for many decades. The realisation that databases were a new type of program with different characteristics had not yet come, and hence most did not consider fixing two digits of the year a significant problem. There were exceptions, of course; the first person known to publicly address the problem was Bob Bemer who had noticed it in 1958, as a result of work on genealogical software. He spent the next twenty years trying to make programmers, IBM, the US government and the ISO care about the problem, with little result. This included the recommendation that the COBOL PICTURE clause should be used to specify four digit years for dates. This could have been done by programmers at any time from the initial release of the first COBOL compiler in 1961 onwards. However lack of foresight, the desire to save storage space, and overall complacency prevented this advice from being followed. Despite magazine articles on the subject from 1970 onwards, the majority of programmers only started recognizing Y2K as a looming problem in the mid-1990s, but even then, inertia and complacency caused it to be mostly ignored until the last few years of the decade.
Storage of a combined date and time within a fixed binary field is often considered a solution, but the possibility for software to misinterpret dates remains, because such date and time representations must be relative to a defined origin. Roll-over of such systems is still a problem but can happen at varying dates and can fail in various ways. For example:
- The typical Unix timestamp stores a date and time as a 32-bit signed integer number representing, roughly speaking, the number of seconds since January 1 1970, and will roll over in 2038 and cause the year 2038 problem.
- The popular spreadsheet Microsoft Excel stores a date as a number of days since an origin (often erroneously called a Julian date). A Julian date stored in a 16-bit integer will overflow after 65,536 days (approximately 179 years). Unfortunately, some releases of the program start at 1900, others at 1904.
- As of 2005, the latest version of Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program is still having elementary Y2K problem: Excel regards year 1900, just like year 2000, as a leap year (in fact, year 1900 is not a leap year).
- In the C programming language, the standard library function to get the current year originally did have the problem that it returned only the year number within the 20th century, and for compatibility's sake still returns the year as year minus 1900. Many programmers in C, and in Perl and JavaScript, two programming languages widely used in Web development that use the C functions, incorrectly treated this value as the last two digits of the year. On the Web this was a mostly harmless bug, but it did cause many dynamically generated webpages to display January 1, 2000, as "1/1/19100", "1/1/100", or variations of that depending on the format.
Even before January 1, 2000 arrived, there were also some worries about September 9, 1999 (albeit lesser compared to those generated by Y2K). This date could also be written in the numeric format, 9/9/99, which is somewhat similar to the end-of-file code, 9999, in old programming languages. It was feared that some programs might unexpectedly terminate on that date. This is actually an urban legend, because computers do not store dates in that manner. In this case, the date would be stored 090999 or 9/9/99, to prevent confusion of the month-day boundary.
Another related problem for the year 2000 was that it was a leap year even though years ending in "00" are normally not leap years. (A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4 unless it is both divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400.) Fortunately, like Y2K, most programs were fixed in time.
Public reaction to the problem
Some industries started experiencing related problems early in the 1990s as software began to process future dates past 1999. For example, in 1993, some people with financial loans that were due in 2000 received (incorrect) notices that they were 93 years past due. As the decade progressed, more and more companies experienced problems and lost money due to erroneous date data. As another example, meat-processing companies incorrectly destroyed large amounts of good meat because the computerized inventory system identified the meat as expired. There were, in fact, many such minor "horror stories" like these, which received much play in the press as 2000 approached.
As the decade progressed, identifying and correcting or replacing affected computer systems or computerized devices became the major focus of information technology departments in most large companies and organizations. Millions of lines of programming code were reviewed and fixed during this period. Many corporations replaced major software systems with completely new ones that did not have the date processing problems. It was frequently reported that corporations had already experienced at least minor Y2K problems, and some major problems as well, due to date look-ahead functions in code and embedded systems, but it was and still is not clear what the full cost and seriousness of these problems were.
Y2K was a big media story in 1999. In some countries public apprehension was tremendous, reaching, in some quarters, enormous proportions. Some individuals stockpiled canned or dried food in anticipation of food shortages. A few commentators predicted a full-scale apocalypse, among them computer consultant Edward Yourdon, religious commentator Gary North, and economist Edward Yardeni.
As midnight approached on 31 December, a team of US and Russian military personnel was in place because of the significant danger that uncorrected Y2K faults in Russian military computers might set off warning systems or even cause missile launches, thus possibly risking nuclear war.
What actually happened
Before the year 2000
Even before the beginning of the year 2000, there were a number of minor problems that occurred.
One such example was a supermarket chain in the midwestern United States. When a cash register encountered a credit card that had an expiration date that was after the year 2000, it created a serious glitch within the computer systems running the cash register. The glitch caused the computer network to shut down all the cash registers throughout the entire supermarket chain. This was used by experts to illustrate the need for businesses to study whether or not a Y2K bug could cripple them also.
In 1996, pallets of Marks & Spencer canned corned beef were scheduled for disposal by an inventory program. The program thought the cans to be ninety-six years past their expiration date, because the labels read "12-1-00" and the program misinterpreted this as 12-1-1900.
During the year
When January 1, 2000, finally came, there were few major problems reported, contrary to many expectations. They mostly occurred in countries with less experience with computers, and/or less money to address the problem. A few made the news, such as a nuclear power plant in Japan that shut down for a short while due to a problem in an auxiliary system, US spy satellites that were blinded briefly, or the national high-speed and airport rail systems of Norway that briefly shut down on December 31, 2000, a date that was not tested for. But in most cases, the problems encountered were minor and were fixed by programmers without difficulty. These problems remained largely isolated from one another, preventing cascading failures, which had been the focus of so much interoperability and end-to-end testing in the period leading up to January 1, 2000.
Ironically, many people were upset that there appeared to be so much hype over nothing, because the vast majority of problems had been fixed correctly. Some critics have suggested that much preventive effort was unnecessary. Their argument is it would have been cheaper not to spend as much examining non-critical systems for flaws and simply fix the few that would have failed after the event. The argument of their opponents is that, had it not been for such efforts, the problem would have been much worse and widespread.
For those not involved in the preventive effort, the conclusion that all the efforts have been a waste was easy to draw, as they had no knowledge of the countless systems that had been corrected, but had only witnessed the problems that had not been fixed in time. Also, few of them realized that fixing the problems afterwards would have been much harder as active millennium problems would have complicated matters. But in any case, for many systems the checking procedure involved replacement with new, improved functionality and thus in many cases the expenditure proved useful regardless. Preparing for Y2K resulted in many more computer programming and testing jobs than would have otherwise existed. Programs were reviewed and tested that otherwise would have been considered "done".
Y2K trivia
Factoids
- The United States established the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act, which limited the liability of businesses who had properly disclosed their Y2K readiness.
- Insurance companies sold insurance policies covering failure of businesses due to Y2K problems.
- Attorneys organized and mobilized for Y2K class action lawsuits (which were not pursued).
- No major failures of infrastructure were reported in the United States or even in many places where they had been widely expected, such as Russia.
- The Y2K problem mainly affected countries that follow the western calendar (Saudi Arabia, for example, does not).
- One theory has it that the Federal Reserve increased the money supply in 1999 to compensate for anticipated hoarding by a frightened populace. The populace, however, was not frightened, and the flood of new money fueled a stock market high tide that went out on January 14, 2000 when the Dow Jones Industrials fell from the all-time peak.
- Many organizations finally realised the critical importance of their IT infrastructure to their business, and put in place plans to keep it running and restore capability in case of disaster. Such planning may well have helped the relatively speedy return to functioning of New York's critical financial IT systems after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
- Speculatively, the Y2K spending on information infrastructure caused a slowdown in information technology spending in the year 2000 and 2001 and may eventually lead to higher productivity in future years.
- The Long Now Foundation, which (in their words) "seeks to promote 'slower/better' thinking and to foster creativity in the framework of the next 10,000 years", has a policy of anticipating the Year 10,000 problem by writing all years with five digits. For example, they list "01996" as their year of founding.
- One of the founders of the Long Now Foundation, Danny Hillis, was one of the few commentators who publicly predicted that Y2K bugs would cause no significant problems (see "Why Do We Buy the Myth of Y2K?", Newsweek, May 31, 1999).
- Univision news reported that on the evening of December 31, 1999, a couple in Peru had committed suicide, for fears of what Y2K would bring.
- A few (but not many) computer systems did actually fail on January 1, although some of those did so on a yearly basis. An almost amusing postscript to the Y2K problem was the fact that a number of computers not set up for leap years actually failed the following February 29.
Quotes
- "We may not have got everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." – Parodic science fiction author Douglas Adams, in an advertisement for Apple Macintosh personal computers.
- "Computing consultants laughing all the way to the bank." – Popular catchphrase used by the Australian media on the First of January 2000.
Y2K in pop culture
- In the 1999 movie Office Space, the main character's job is to rewrite bank software to use dates with 4-digit years instead of 2.
- The Halloween episode of The Simpsons for the 1999–2000 season, Treehouse of Horror X, contained a sketch fittingly entitled "Life's A Glitch, Then You Die". Homer's failure to check Y2K preparedness at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant results in a global technology-related catastrophe.
- The Family Guy episode "Da Boom" (aired December 26, 1999) featured the Griffin family surviving the end of civilization, caused by the Y2K bug. At the end of the episode, it is revealed in a Dallas parody that the episode was all just a dream.
- The flashback portions of the episode "11:59"' of Star Trek: Voyager (aired May 5, 1999) takes place on December 31, 2000, where an ancestor of Captain Kathryn Janeway, Shannon O'Donnell, claims that "the Y2K bug couldn't even turn off a single light bulb."
- The Newsradio episode "Meet the Max Louis" had a subplot in which the station's electrician Joe Garelli dealt with the effects of him programming the computer system to Jesus' "actual" birth-date. The episode was filmed in 1998, so they were experiencing the year 2000 problem two years early.
- In an episode of "Dilbert", Wally is given command to fix the company computer systems for Y2K. He fixes them, only finding out that the millennium starts on January 1, 2001.
- Several different movies with the title "Y2K" were made: "Y2K" (1999) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0196221/ (IMDb entry)] and "Y2K: The Movie" (1999) (TV) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0215370/ (IMDb entry)].
- The popular web comic Kevin and Kell had several story angles relating to Y2K. One of the primary characters, Fiona Fennec, was granted magic powers by "aliens" (really the "Great Bird Conspiracy") to fix the problem on a global scale.
- The 1999 film Entrapment, presented the two thieves, played by Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery, to synchronize their plans according to the turn of the millennium, taking advantage of the technical problems.
- Jennifer Lopez's music video for her 1999 single Waiting for Tonight featured a power failure during a party held on the beginning of 2000.
- On an episode of Seinfeld, it shows Kramer and Newman preparing for their Y2K parties.
- In the Weird Al Yankovic song "It's All About the Pentiums", Weird Al says "I ain't afraid of Y2K."
See also
- Year 2038 problem
- Year 10,000 problem
References
- DeJesus, Edmund X. (1998). "Year 2000 Survival Guide". BYTE, July 1998, vol. 23, no. 7 (the final issue of BYTE).
- Keogh, Jim (1998). "Working to Solve the Year 2000 Problem". Ch. 12 (pp. 307–329) of COBOL Programmer's Notebook. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall PTR. ISBN 0-13-977414-9.
External links
- [http://www.globalgriot.com/films.php?id=1 A Day in the Hype of America] – Y2K documentary by Global Griot Productions, filmed entirely 31 December 1999
- [http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/johnquiggin/news/Millennium9908.html "Y2K bug may never bite"] – by John Quiggin (published in the "Australian Financial Review", 2 September 1999 – Article predicting no serious trouble based on experience in 2000, blaming fear of litigation for over-reaction to Y2K
- [http://www.legadoassociates.com/y2k.htm "A New Year's Embarrassment for Y2K doomsters"] – By Wynn Quon, Mitel Corp. (published in the National Post, 5 October 1999) – An article looking into the absence of serious Y2K-related trouble during the first nine months of 1999, its author predicting a minimal amount of trouble happening at the turn of the millennium three months away.
- [http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/y2k/index.html The Surprising Legacy Of Y2K] – Radio documentary by American Public Media, on the history and legacy of the millennium bug five years on.
Category:System software
Category:Calendars
2000
ja:2000年問題
January 1
January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Here a calendar year refers to the order in which the months are displayed, January to December. The first day of the medieval Julian year was usually a day other than January 1. This day was adopted as the first day of the Julian year by all Western European countries except England between about 1450 and 1600. The Gregorian calendar as promulgated in 1582 did not specify that January 1 was to be either New Year's Day or the first day of its numbered year. Although England began its numbered year on March 25 (Lady Day or Annunciation Day), between the 13th century and 1752, January 1 was called New Year's Day, and was, with Christmas and occasionally Twelfth Night, a holiday when gifts were exchanged. 364 days (365 in leap years) remain in the year after this day.
Events
- 45 BC - The Julian calendar first takes effect.
- 404 - Last known gladiator competition in Rome takes place.
- 630 - Prophet Muhammad sets out toward Mecca with the army that will capture it bloodlessly.
- 990 - Kievan Rus' adopts the Julian calendar.
- 1438 - Albert II of Habsburg is crowned King of Hungary.
- 1600 - Scotland begins using the Julian calendar.
- 1651 - Charles II crowned King of Scotland
- 1673 - Regular mail delivery begins between New York and Boston.
- 1700 - Russia begins using the Julian calendar.
- 1707 - John V is crowned King of Portugal
- 1738 - Bouvet Island is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier.
- 1788 - First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published.
- 1797 - Albany replaces New York City as the capital on New York.
- 1801 - Legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed to form United Kingdom.
- 1801 - The first known asteroid, 1 Ceres, is discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi.
- 1804 - French rule ends in Haiti.
- 1808 - Importation of slaves into the United States is banned.
- 1818 - Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is published.
- 1855 - London, Ontario is incorporated as a city.
- 1861 - Porfirio Diaz conquers Mexico City.
- 1863 - American Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect.
- 1863 - The first claim under the Homestead Act is made by Daniel Freeman for a farm in Nebraska.
- 1880 - Ferdinand de Lesseps begins French construction of the Panama Canal.
- 1887 - Queen Victoria was proclaimed empress of India in Delhi.
- 1892 - Ellis Island opens to begin accepting immigrants to the United States.
- 1893 - Japan begins using the Gregorian calendar.
- 1894 - The Manchester Ship Canal, England, was officially opened to traffic.
- 1898 - New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The four initial boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, are joined on January 25th by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs.
- 1899 - Spanish rule ends in Cuba.
- 1901 - Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.
- 1901 - The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton becomes first Prime Minister.
- 1901 - The first official Mummers Parade is held.
- 1902 - The first Rose Bowl game is played in Pasadena, California.
- 1908 - For the first time, a ball is dropped in New York City's Times Square to signify the start of the New Year.
- 1911 - Northern Territory is separated from South Australia and transferred to Commonwealth control.
- 1912 - The Republic of China is established.
- 1916 - German troops abandon Yaoundé and their Kamerun colony to British forces and begin the long march to Spanish Guinea.
- 1934 - Alcatraz Island becomes a U.S. federal prison.
- 1934 - Nazi Germany passes the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring".
- 1935 - Bucknell University wins the first Orange Bowl 26-0 over the University of Miami.
- 1937 - Anastasio Somoza becomes President of Nicaragua.
- 1937 - The first Cotton Bowl game is played in Dallas, Texas.
- 1939 - The Vienna New Year's Concert is first held.
- 1942 - The Declaration by the United Nations is signed by twenty-six nations.
- 1948 - British railways are nationalised to form British Rail.
- 1948 - After partition, India declines to pay the agreed share of Rs.550 million in cash balances to Pakistan.
- 1948 - Enrico De Nicola formally becomes President of the Italian Republic, but refuses to be a candidate for the first constitutional election the following May.
- 1949 - UN Cease-fire orders to operate in Kashmir from one minute before midnight. War between India and Pakistan stops accordingly.
- 1956 - The Republic of the Sudan achieves independence from the Egyptian Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- 1958 - The European Community is established.
- 1959 - Fulgencio Batista, President of the Republic of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces.
- 1960 - The Republic of Cameroon achieves independence from France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- 1962 - Western Samoa achieves independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa.
- 1964 - The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is divided into the independent republics of Zambia and Malawi, and the British-controlled Rhodesia.
- 1969 - Marien Ngouabi formally becomes the President of the Republic of Congo.
- 1970 - The Unix epoch begins at 00:00:00 UTC.
- 1971 - Cigarette advertisements are banned on American television.
- 1973 - The Kingdom of Denmark, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland are admitted into the European Community.
- 1976 - NBC introduces its new logo: an abstract N, similar to the Nebraska Educational Television Network logo.
- 1978 - Air India Flight 855 Boeing 747 explodes and crashes into the sea off the coast of Bombay, killing 213.
- 1979 - Formal diplomatic relations are established between the People's Republic of China and the United States of America.
- 1981 - The Republic of Greece is admitted into the European Community.
- 1981 - The Republic of Palau achieves self-government; it is not yet independent from the United States of America.
- 1983 - The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
- 1984 - AT&T is broken up into twenty-two independent units.
- 1984 - The Sultanate of Brunei becomes independent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- 1985 - The Internet's Domain Name System is created.
- 1985 - The first British mobile phone call is made by Ernie Wise to Vodafone.
- 1986 - Aruba becomes independent of Curaçao, though it remains in free association with the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
- 1986 - Spain and Portugal are admitted into the European Community.
- 1988 - The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America comes into existence, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States of America.
- 1993 - Velvet Divorce: Czechoslovakia is divided into the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic.
- 1993 - A single market within the European Community is introduced.
- 1993 - Pakistan is elected member of the 15-nation UN Security Council.
- 1994 - The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiates twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican State of Chiapas.
- 1994 - The North American Free Trade Agreement comes into effect.
- 1995 - The World Trade Organization comes into effect.
- 1995 - The Kingdom of Sweden and the republics of Austria and Finland are admitted into the European Union.
- 1995 - The Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe becomes the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
- 1996 - Curaçao gains limited self-government, though it remains within free association with the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
- 1997 - The Republic of Zaïre officially joins the World Trade Organization, as Zaïre.
- 1998 - Smoking is banned in all bars and restaurants in the State of California.
- 1999 - The Euro currency is introduced.
- 2002 - Euro banknotes and coins become legal tender in twelve of the European Union's member states.
- 2002 - The Republic of China officially joins the World Trade Organization, as Chinese Taipei.
- 2002 - The Open Skies mutual surveillance treaty, initially signed in 1992, officially enters into force.
- 2003 - Luís Inácio Lula da Silva becomes president of the Federative Republic of Brazil.
- 2004 - Pervez Musharraf receives a vote of confidence to continue as the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan from Parliament and the provincial assemblies.
Births
- 766 - Ali ar-Rida, Shia Imam (d. 818)
- 1431 - Pope Alexander VI (d. 1503)
- 1449 - Lorenzo de Medici, Italian statesman (d. 1492)
- 1484 - Huldrych Zwingli, Swiss Protestant leader (d. 1531)
- 1516 - Margareta Leijonhufvud, queen of Gustav I of Sweden (d. 1551)
- 1557 - Stephen Bocskay, Prince of Transylvania (d. 1606)
- 1600 - Friedrich Spanheim, Dutch theologian (d. 1649)
- 1614 - John Wilkins, English Bishop of Chester (d. 1672)
- 1618 - Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Spanish painter (d. 1682)
- 1638 - Emperor Go-Sai of Japan (d. 1685)
- 1648 - Elkanah Settle, English writer (d. 1724)
- 1655 - Christian Thomasius, German jurist (d. 1728)
- 1684 - Arnold Drakenborch, Dutch classical scholar (d. 1748)
- 1704 - Soame Jenyns, English writer (d. 1787)
- 1711 - Franz Freiherr von der Trenck, Austrian soldier (d. 1749)
- 1714 - Kristijonas Donelaitis, Lithuanian poet (d. 1780)
- 1735 - Paul Revere, American silversmith and patriot (d. 1818)
- 1750 - Frederick Muhlenberg, first speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1801)
- 1752 - Betsy Ross, American seamstress (d. 1836)
- 1774 - André Marie Constant Duméril, French zoologist (d. 1860)
- 1793 - Francesco Guardi, Italian artist (b. 1712)
- 1823 - Sándor Petőfi, Hungarian poet and revolutionary (d. 1849)
- 1833 - Robert Lawson, New Zealand architect (d. 1902)
- 1839 - Ouida, English writer (d. 1908)
- 1854 - Sir James George Frazer, Scottish anthropologist (d. 1941)
- 1860 - George Washington Carver, American educator, inventor, and botanist (d. 1943)
- 1863 - Pierre de Coubertin, French initiator of the modern Olympic Games (d. 1937)
- 1864 - Alfred Stieglitz, American photographer (d. 1946)
- 1873 - Mariano Azuela, Mexican novelist (d. 1952)
- 1874 - Gustave Whitehead, German-American inventor (d. 1927)
- 1876 - Harriet Brooks, Canadian physicist (d. 1933)
- 1879 - E. M. Forster, English novelist (d. 1970)
- 1887 - Wilhelm Canaris, German admiral (d. 1945)
- 1890 - Anton Melik, Slovenian geographer (d. 1966)
- 1892 - Artur Rodzinski, Croatian conductor (d. 1958)
- 1894 - Satyendra Nath Bose, Indian mathematician (d. 1974)
- 1895 - J. Edgar Hoover, American Federal Bureau of Investigation director (d. 1972)
- 1900 - Xavier Cugat, Catalan-Cuban musician, bandleader (d. 1990)
- 1902 - Buster Nupen, South African cricketer (d. 1977)
- 1904 - Fazal Ilahi Chaudhr | | |
