Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Ides of March’

Ephemeris: 03/15/2024 – The Ides of March

March 15, 2024 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Ides of March, Friday, March 15th. Today the Sun will be up for 11 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 7:49, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:52. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 3:01 tomorrow morning.

Our calendar is derived from the Roman calendar. The Ides is the only named day ion the Roman calendar that we’re familiar with today, the Ides of March. On this day in 44 BCE Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated. The Ides of a month is the 13th of the month except for March, May, July, and October when it’s the 15th. The Roman calendar has two other named days. The 1st of the month is called Kalend, from which we get our word calendar. The other day is Nones which is the 5th day of the month except for March, May, July, and October when it’s on the 7th. The other days are countdown days to those dates so tomorrow will be the 17th day before the Kalend of April. The countdown is to 1 not 0, if you’re counting.

My source: https://www.slideserve.com/jonah/roman-calendar

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

A statue of Julius Caesar
A statue of Julius Caesar in this uncredited photo. He straightened out the chaotic Roman calendar and established the rule of adding a day every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. However, the Romans weren’t serious about it until about 8 CE. His calendar is called the Julian Calendar.

This being a leap year, I will spend more time on these programs talking about the calendar. As you may know, we no longer use the Julian calendar for our normal calendar keeping functions. We use the Gregorian Calendar which is a modification of the Julian Calendar that was first made in the year 1582 CE. As we get closer to Easter I will delve into the Gregorian Calendar because it has everything to do with the date of Easter.

Categories: Calendar, Concepts, Ephemeris Program, History Tags: , , ,

03/15/2022 – Ephemeris – The Ides of March and our calendar

March 15, 2022 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Ides of March, Tuesday, March 15th. Today the Sun will be up for 11 hours and 53 minutes, setting at 7:49, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:53. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 7:36 tomorrow morning.

The first day of spring is the vernal equinox, which occurs in our time zone on March 20th. The Ides of March, the 15th, is pretty close to the vernal equinox and was the start of the year for a time with the Romans. It was the date in 44 BC that Julius Caesar was assassinated. March, named after the god Mars, was also for a long time the first month of the year, even to the point of starting the year on the Ides of March. They, for a time, had 10 months in their year, and consigned the winter months to sixty nondescript days. Later, they added January and February in front of March, which is why our 9th through 12th months are named September the 7th to December the 10th month.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Categories: Calendar, Ephemeris Program Tags: