Re: Ssystem bug

[Aidan Keady <aidan@ssd.ie>]

> BTW, does anyone remember when they changed the start of the year from
> March to January and why? Calling the 9th month the seventh always confuses
> me.

There were originally ten months in the year, with July and August being added
later to commemorate Julius Caesar and Augustus.   September - December were
then no longer the seventh to tenth months.   The year ending during March
ended with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, at least in Britain/Ireland.
This calendar was introduced in 1582 but was not adopted until much later in
some countries (1752 in Britain, 1918 in Russia).

Think of the chaos if there had been any computers around in 1582 - and the
market for Gregorian-compliant software!

As a feeble attempt to get MiNT into this posting, it is mildly interesting that
some Irish coins MiNTed during a seventeenth century war carried the month as well
as year of issue, so those dated March 1689 and March 1690 are from the same month.

ATB,
Aidan.