Trivial Fact The chuckwalla, a type of lizard, escapes pursuers by crawling into a crack in a rock and inflating its body with air so that it is wedged tightly into the crack and can't be pulled out. The hamburger sandwich was invented by Louis Lassen at his lunch counter in New Haven Connecticut in 1900.

What is a year? A year is the time it takes the earth to travel around the sun. This is known as a seasonal, tropical or solar year. It consists of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.5 seconds. In most of the world, a calendar year consists of 365 days. In order to compensate for the 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.5 seconds, every fourth year is a leap year in which the year consists of 366 days. The term "leap" year comes from the fact that after February, the days "leap" a week day and occur two days later than they did the previous year. To further refine the accuracy, only one in four century years (according to the Christian calendar) is a leap year. Calendars The ancient Babylonians had a calendar consisting of 12 months of 30 days each. They added extra months when necessary to keep the calendar in line with the seasons. The ancient Egyptians were the first to have a calendar based on the solar year. Their calendar had 365 days divided into 12 months of 30 days each. They added 5 days on to the end of the year to make up the 365 days. King Ptolemy III ordered that an extra day be added every fourth year. The ancient Greeks had a year of 354 days. They were the first to insert extra months into the calendar at specific intervals in a cycle of solar years. The original Roman calendar had 10 months with 304 days in a year. Julius Caesar, on the advice of the Greek astronomer Sosigenes, implemented a purely solar calendar. He fixed the normal year at 365 days with a leap year consisting of 366 days every fourth year. This calendar, known as the Julian calendar, established the months and days of the week used in the Western world today. The Julian calendar was 11 minutes and 24 seconds longer than the solar year. By 1582 this made the vernal equinox (the day when there are equal hours of daylight and night) 10 days early. Pope Gregory XIII issued a decree dropping 10 days from the calendar. He instituted a calendar known as the Gregorian calendar that provided that only century years divisible by 400 should be leap years. It is the calendar that is used today throughout most of the Western world. Counting the Years The Christian Calendar It was not until more than 500 years after Christ's death that Christians started counting the year from the approximate date of His birth. The Roman calendar started with the year Rome was founded. In the Roman year 1278, a Christian monk named Dionysius Exiguus decided that the calendar should start with Christ's birth. He estimated that Christ had been born 525 years earlier, in the Roman year 753, and therefore he set the year at 525. It is generally agreed today that Christ was born several years earlier, however no correction has been made. The Jewish Calendar The official calendar of the state of Israel, the Jewish calendar is used by Jewish people throughout the world as a religious calendar. The years are counted from the creation of the world as described in the Old Testament, 3761 B.C. The Muslim Calendar The Muslim calendar is used in most Muslim countries. Its starting point is 622 A.D. the day after the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina.

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