Have you ever wondered where our calendar came from? It all started in Egypt in 2773 BCE, where the Egyptians recognized that their current calendar system, the lunar based calendar, wasn't going to work and needed a revision. Because of this, Egyptian astronomers turned to the Sun, or more specifically the sun-based star Sothis. They utilized the Sun based rising of this star to create a calendar with 365 days, 12 months with 30 days each, and 4 seasons.

The Egyptian calendar first started around 4000 BC (Not the calendar we are talking about), when the Egyptians first acknowledged the need for a calendar. This calendar was originally based on the moon, not the sun. The Lunar based calendar was originally used for keeping track of the flooding of the Nile river, which was super important for farming since after it flooded, it would leave behind fertile black mud, or silt. As Egypt grew around 2000 BC, so did their needs, and therefore they needed a better calendar for administrative purposes. This led to the creation of the sun-based 365 day calendar.

This was the super impressive part of the Egyptian 365 day calendar. The calendar was almost 100% accurate, in fact it only fell short of a true solar year by only 6 hours. The only change that needed to be made was made by Julius Caesar, who added leap years into the calendar to make up for the .25 days lost every year. Leap years are a system where a day is added onto the year, and this happens every 4 years to essentially even everything out.

The main purpose of the calendar was for administrative purposes and/or record keeping. Basically it was meant for keeping track of Holidays as well as when things needed to be done. Egyptians also used the calendar for agriculture purposes, as it told Egyptians when the Nile flooded and gave them silt. Also, as mentioned in the introduction, it was the basis for our current calendar. While it had many similarities, there were differences between our calendar and the Egyptian one, including the fact that the days and months didn't at all line up.