Then there is the Jewish calendar which puts us in the year 5767.
Happy New Year to us all!
Gabriel Austin
-----Original Message-----
From: Rare book and manuscripts [mailto:EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU] On
Behalf Of Francois Lapelerie
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 2:52 AM
To: EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: Re: [EXLIBRIS-L] The long 18c
Some answers are very ethnocentric because:
-calendars are not the same everywhere in the world : for occidental
people, we begin with year 0, which was not realy 0, but maybe 5, or 6
or 7..., if we believe astronomers. For Muslims, their era begins
in... In Iran, when Mohamad Shah Pahlavi was ruling the country, they
went back to the reign of Kourosh (or Cyrus, for Hellenists), that was
less a lot of years with regard to our calendar, and in 1973 for
instance we were in 4280 (maybe not very exact , but i was there and
was fun to translate a shahinshaian date in christian one and reverse)
-years are not similar: for occidental countries: 365 days; for jews or
for muslims, less than 365..because they have lunar and not solar
calendars.And what about ides or kalends...
-important events which end or begin new era or period (or "epoch",
again for hellenists) are not the same everywhere. For instance, if
"The Wall" fell down in 89 (1989), a very strong one does exist 17
years later in some countries (Cuba, Korea, China). What 1789 or 1815
mean for South American counties or China. Japan heard about Waterlo 2
years after Napoleon's defeat, and that was just no news for them,
because they didn't care about this guy, dead or alive. Was the death
of Cleopatra a turn in the curse of Universal History ?
We have to transform Rangananthan's law :
1-Years are for use.
2-Every person his or her year(s)
3-Every year its countries.
4-Save the time of the exlibrians.
5-The time is a decreasing organism (Alas poor Yorick).
And Joyeux Noel and Bonne année
François Lapelerie
Le vendredi, 22 déc 2006, à 06:37 Europe/Paris, Edward Pollack a écrit :
> "Nope, the twentieth century ended in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin
> Wall. From then it was less than two years before the US was at war
> in the
> middle east. The end of the USSR was an anti-climax."
>