Calendar Talk

A Tibetan calendar

It all started when I realized that Queen Elizabeth will be observing the sixtieth anniversary of her accession to the throne in just two days now, on February 6th, the day her father died in 1952, prompting Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year.  So how much longer will it be, I wondered, before she becomes Britain's longest-reigning monarch?  For that, I found we'll have to wait until September 10, 2015 ... though Elizabeth, at 85, has now lived longer than Victoria who died when she was 81.

Then I learned that 2012 has been designated the Alan Turing Year in commemoration of the English cryptographer's birth just a hundred years ago.  Turing was a mathematician who helped break the German code during World War II when he worked at Bletchley Park with the Enigma machine--work which contributed to the subsequent invention of the computer.  (Too bad it took a war to invent the computer.)

Wondering about other '12 years besides our own, I did a little research.  Here's what I came up with.

1912.  Two separate expeditions went off to be the first at the South Pole--one (Amundsen's) a total success using sled dogs, the other (Scott's) a total failure using horses.  The airplane was coming into its own with the first parachute jump from a moving plane, the first use of a plane for military purposes, and the first bombing from a plane.  The RMS Titanic sank.  Japan ended its Meiji era and also sent 3,000 cherry trees to Washington, D.C.  The theory of continental drift was proposed.  Born:  Kim Philby, Charles Addams, Jackson Pollock, Erich Leinsdorf, Eva Braun, Lawrence Durrell, Pat Nixon, Wernher von Braun, Sonja Henie, Studs Terkel, Heinrich Harrer, Woody Guthrie, Milton Friedman, Julia Child, Gene Kelly, and Lady Bird Johnson.  Died:  Robert Falcon Scott (and the other members of his expedition), Clara Barton, John Jacob Astor IV (and other passengers on the Titanic), August Strindberg, Wilbur Wright, Jules Massenet.

1812.  A time of conflict when the War of 1812 began between the U.S. and Britain ... Lord Wellington fought in the Peninsular War (Spain) ... Napoleon was making trouble in Europe, invading Russia and fighting in the Battle of Borodino ... and Luddites, in desperation, were turning violent against English industry.  (Lord Byron apparently addressed the House of Lords on their behalf.)  James Madison was re-elected President.  The first volume of Grimms Fairy Tales was published.  Born:  Charles Dickens, Robert Browning.  Died:  Sacagawea.

1712.  Two Englishmen came up with an invention which harnessed steam power in a practical way.  Born:  Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

1612.  Shah Jahan married Mumtaz Mahal (for whom he later built the Taj Mahal).  Galileo Galilei was the first to observe Neptune though thought it a fixed star.  Born:  Samuel Butler.  Died:  Giovanni Gabrieli.

A calendar from India

In prowling these sources, I found a good site for what I might call "2012 in Other Calendars."  This year, for instance, is 6761 in the Assyrian calendar.  2555 in the Buddhist.  5771-5772 in the Hebrew.  1389-1390 in the Iranian.  5112-5113 in the Kali Yuga (Hindu).  And I found two calendars I wasn't aware of--and their subsequent reckoning for 2012.

1. The Anno Urbis Conditae which counts from the founding of Rome.  2764.

2. And Unix time calculated in seconds since January 1, 1970.  So:  1293840000 - 1325375999.

Finally, I'm glad we can at last more or less agree to call this and upcoming years The Twenty-somethings and put aside that Two Thousand usage.  After all, we say Nineteen-o-eight, not One-thousand, Nine-hundred and Eight.  And then when 2000 came around, people tagged on the awkward, The Year 2000.  Why not jump right in and call it Twenty-hundred, I wondered.  I'm still curious how we'll label the first decade of this century.  I remember hearing my parents call 1900 to 1909 the Naughty Oughties.  What will we come up with?  The Zeros, the Knottys, the Double Dips?

By the way, thanks, Wikipedia.