Why did Alaska stop using the Julian calendar today?
October 5, 1867 — Today marks the last day of Julian calendar in Alaska.
Introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC (708 AUC), the Julian calendar was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect in 45 BC (709 AUC), shortly after the Roman conquest of Egypt. It was the predominant calendar in the Roman world, most of Europe, and in European settlements in the Americas and elsewhere, until it was refined and gradually replaced by the Gregorian calendar, promulgated in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.
The Julian calendar gains against the mean tropical year at the rate of one day in 128 years. For the Gregorian the figure is one day in 3,226 years. The difference in the average length of the year between Julian (365.25 days) and Gregorian (365.2425 days) is 0.002%.
So why did Alaska stop using it? It turns out that the legal code of the United States does not specify an official national calendar. Use of the Gregorian calendar in the United States stems from an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1751, which specified use of the Gregorian calendar in England and its colonies. But today, when Alaska became part of the US, it adopted the national calendar.
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Words of Wisdom
Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
