The Julian Calendar was established in the year 45 BC and was used for thousands of years. It wasn’t until the late 1800s and early 1900s that the last countries adopted the new Gregorian calendar we use today. Even so there are still some areas of the world that to this day use what is commonly known as the Old Style Calendar.
Julius Caesar of the Roman Empire is often credited as proposing the use of the Julian calendar. The idea was to align the Roman civic calendar with the solar calendar which by the time of the use of the Julian calendar were three months off. Prior to this reform the Roman civic calendar consisted of 12 months and only 355 days. After many alterations the Julian calendar was the first to bring the days of the year to what we now follow as 365.
If you’re interested in a deeper dive into the history of this calendar check out Wikipedia and Britannica.
Julian Dates
Curious what today’s Julian date is? Use the format yyddd (year & number of the day). For instance, if today is March 29, 2022, the year is “22” and the Julian day is “088.” Therefore, the Julian date for March 29, 2022 is 22088.
Printable Julian Calendars and Julian Day Calendars
