Imposition of the Gregorian calendar

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On January 7, 1502 AD, the Italian pontiff, Ugo Boncompagni, who as Pope Gregory XIII was head of the Catholic sect of Christianity from 1572 to 1585, was born in Bologna, and later after fathering an illegitimate child through adultery, joined the Church. He is known for commissioning the Gregorian calendar that bears his name and was imposed in the 20th century on the rest of the world by the western powers. On Thursday 4th October 1582, three years before his death, Gregory replaced the pre-Christian Julian calendar of the Romans, decreeing that the next day, Friday, be declared as October 15, which meant the skipping of ten days in the Catholic countries of Italy, Portugal, Spain and Poland. The rest of Europe opposed his move and continued to follow the Julian Calendar of Julius Caesar. For instance, Britain and its colonies resisted this change by the Catholic Pope, and used the Julian calendar for more than a century and a half until Wednesday 2nd September 1752, which meant that the next morning on Thursday it was the 14th of September instead of September 3. Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1918, a year after the atheist non-Christian Bolshevik Revolution, and Greece as late as 1923, while in 1927 this calendar was imposed on Turkey as part of the anti-Islamic policies of Mustafa Kamal Ata-Turk. At any rate, it was only in the 20th century between the Two World Wars that the Gregorian calendar along with January 1 as New Year Day was forced upon the rest of the world, so that the globe would be held in ransom to the policies of London and Washington. Iran is among the very few world countries that do not follow the Christian calendar for administrative purposes or for keeping track of the orderly seasons, since the solar hijri calendar in use in Iran is more perfect and precise than the Gregorian calendar.