New Year’s has come and gone, but what the hell does that mean, anyway? Where do we come up with all these silly temporal divisions? Well, some make more sense than others.
A year is a pretty handy measurement; the amount of time it takes for the Earth to make one full revolution around the Sun. Useful knowledge when you need to plot the changing of the seasons for crop rotation. Good, solid, astronomically founded unit. Our calendar year only differs three-quarters of a day from the astronomical, or “Julian,” calendar. Hence the need for leap days every four years.
Deciding when a new year starts, conversely, is pretty damn arbitrary. Our use of January 1st as the beginning of a new year dates back to ancient Rome, when the celebration of the both backward and forward-looking god Janus followed the winter solstice, commemorating when the days once again begin to lengthen. The date’s importance was further cemented when the Roman Senate voted to deify Caesar on January 1, 46 BC, to honor, amongst other things, his institution of the Julian calendar. The later Gregorian calendar, still in use today, continued to respect the event.
Julian Gregory Day. Oooooh, now I get it.
Also linked to the lunar cycle. Although maybe not anymore. I don’t know; I’ve lost track.
But the day, hey, now there’s a unit you can count on! Sun goes up, Sun goes down. Easy enough. Except, as alluded to earlier, the amount of “daylight” each day changes dramatically at higher latitudes in relation to the time of year. So one of the earliest definitions of “day” was the time between maximum elevations of the sun. Simple. More or less constant. We’ve since put a finer point on it, defining a day as the amount of time it takes the Earth to complete one full rotation.
Moon Knight’s often nemesis, the Werewolf by Night, transforms when the Sun goes down. Gets more depressed in the winter than most.
He’ll keep his powers for one-twenty-fourth of the time taken for the sundial’s shadow to return to its original position! Try fitting that on a masthead.
Here’s an image of obscure Spider-Man villain Turner D. Century, just because. One day I’ll write a story where instead of late 1890s garb, he starts wearing Von Dutch hats and Creed T-shirts. DON’T STEAL THAT!
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