home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- SCALIGER SETS JULIAN ERA EPOCH: 1583
-
- The French classical scholar Joseph Justus
- Scaliger proposed in 1583 that the epoch of the
- Julian era be fixed at January 1, 4713 bc, at noon.
- The beginnings of the cycles used in antiquity
- coincided at that time, and the date was sufficiently
- remote to furnish a reference point to which all
- other chronological systems might be compared. The
- Julian cycle contains 7980 years of 3656 days, but
- computation is seldom by years, and the days are
- numbered consecutively.
-