1st century BC
The 1st century BC known as the last century BC, started on the first day of 100 BC and ended on the last day of 1 BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a year zero; this is the 100th century in the Holocene calendar. 1st century AD follows. In the course of the century all the remaining independent lands surrounding the Mediterranean were brought under Roman control, being ruled either directly under governors or through puppet kings appointed by Rome; the Roman state itself was plunged into civil war several times resulting in the marginalization of its 500-year-old republic, the embodiment of total state power in a single man—the emperor. The internal turbulence that plagued Rome at this time can be seen as the death throes of the Roman Republic, as it gave way to the autocratic ambitions of powerful men like Sulla, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian. Octavian's ascension to total power as the emperor Augustus is considered to mark the point in history where the Roman Republic ends and the Roman Empire begins.
Some scholars refer to this event as the Roman Revolution. It is believed that the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity took place at the close of this century. In the eastern mainland, the Han Dynasty began to decline and the court of China was in chaos in the latter half of this century. Trapped in a difficult situation, the Xiongnu had to begin emigration to the west or attach themselves to the Han. 97 BC: Ariarathes VIII is forced out of Cappadocia by Mithridates VI of Pontus, dies soon afterwards. 96 BC: Cyrene is left to the people of Rome by its ruler Ptolemy Apion. 96 BC: King Alexander Jannaeus of Judea wins the Siege of Gaza. 95 BC: Tigranes the Great becomes king of Armenia 93 BC: Ariobarzanes I Philoromaios becomes king of Cappadocia with Roman backing. 91 BC: The assassination of Marcus Livius Drusus leads to the Social War in Italy 91 BC: Crown Prince Ju Revolt in China. 89 BC: Mithridates VI of Pontus's invasion of Cappadocia leads to the First Mithridatic War with the Roman Republic.
89 BC: Valagamba of Anuradhapura gains control of all of Sri Lanka 88 BC: 80,000 Roman civilians killed in the Asiatic Vespers in Asia Minor 87 BC: Emperor Wu of Han dies and is succeeded by his eight-year-old son Zhao, with Jin Midi, Shangguang Jie and Huo Guang as regents. 88-87 BC: Sulla's first civil war - Sulla marches on Rome and defeats Gaius Marius 86 BC: Siege of Athens ends with Roman conquest of Athens. 86 BC: The death of the regent of China Jin Midi unleashes the rivalry of his co-regents Shangguang Jie and Huo Guang. 85 BC: Sulla defeats the forces of Mithridates VI in Greece at the Battle of Orchomenus 85 BC: Aretas III of the Nabataeans conquers Damascus. 83 BC: Sulla makes peace with Mithridates VI and marches on Rome. 83-81 BC: Lucius Licinius Murena wages the Second Mithridatic War. 82 BC: Sertorius flees from Sulla to North Africa via Hispania c.83 BC: Tigranes of Armenia takes control of Syria after the implosion of the Seleucid dynasty. 81 BC: End of Sulla's second civil war - Sulla is appointed dictator of the Roman state, brings about major reforms.
80 BC: Sertorius invades Hispania and sets up his own regime, beginning the Sertorian War. 80 BC: Conflict between the regents Shangguang Jie and Huo Guang results in the destruction of the Shangguang clan and Huo Guang becoming the de facto ruler of China. C.80 BC: Maues, King of the Sakas, conquers Gandhara and Taxila. 77 BC: Fu Jiezi assassinated the king of Loulan on behalf of the Han dynasty. C.75 BC: Kanva dynasty replaces the Shunga dynasty in Magadha. 74 BC: Mithridates VI of Pontus disputes Nicomedes IV of Bithynia's bequest of his kingdom to the Roman Republic, beginning the Third Mithridatic War. 74 BC: Emperor Zhao of Han dies and is succeeded by the unsuitable Prince He of Changyi and by Xuan. Huo Guang continues to be de facto ruler of China. 73 BC: A slave rebellion led by the escaped gladiator Spartacus leads to the Third Servile War. 73-72 BC: Lucullus defeats Mithridates at Tenedos and the Rhyndacus and he flees east to Armenia 71 BC: Pompey the Great ends the Sertorian War and the Third Servile War.
71 BC: Wusun and China attack the Xiongnu. 69 BC: Lucullus invades Armenia and reestablishes the Seleucids in Syria. 68 BC: Pompey replaces Lucullus as leader of the Roman forces in the Third Mithridatic War. 68 BC: Huo Guang dies and Emperor Xuan of Han assumes full power. The Huo clan is eliminated over the following two years. 67 BC: Pompey is given a three-year extraordinary command against the pirates plaguing the Mediterranean and defeats them in forty days. 66 BC: Pompey drives Mithridates VI out of Asia Minor. 66 BC: Aristobulus II seizes power from John Hyrcanus II in Judea. 63 BC: Mithridates VI commits suicide, ending the Third Mithridatic War. 63 BC: Cicero denounces and defeats the Catilinarian Conspiracy. 63 BC: Pompey captures Jerusalem, establishes Roman annexation of Judea as a client kingdom. He permanently abolishes Seleucid Syria. Aristobulus II of Judea removed from John Hyrcanus II restored as Roman vassal. 62 BC: Nabataean kingdom becomes a Roman vassal. 61 BC: Orgetorix and the Helvetii's attempt to migrate into southwestern France leads Julius Caesar to take military action, beginning the Gallic Wars 60 BC: Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, Marcus Crassus form the First Triumvirate c. 60 BC: The Sakas conquer Mathura.
58 BC: Battle of Bibracte - Julius Caesar conquers the Helvetii 58 BC: Germans invade Gaul and are defeated by Julius Caesar at Battle of Vosges. 58 BC
Buddhist calendar
The Buddhist calendar is a set of lunisolar calendars used in mainland Southeast Asian countries of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand as well as in Sri Lanka and Chinese populations of Malaysia and Singapore for religious or official occasions. While the calendars share a common lineage, they have minor but important variations such as intercalation schedules, month names and numbering, use of cycles, etc. In Thailand, the name Buddhist Era is a year numbering system shared by the traditional Thai lunisolar calendar and by the Thai solar calendar; the Southeast Asian lunisolar calendars are based on an older version of the Hindu calendar, which uses the sidereal year as the solar year. One major difference is that the Southeast Asian systems, unlike their Indian cousins, do not use apparent reckoning to stay in sync with the sidereal year. Instead, they employ their versions of the Metonic cycle. However, since the Metonic cycle is not accurate for sidereal years, the Southeast Asian calendar is drifting out of sync with the sidereal one day every 100 years.
Yet no coordinated structural reforms of the lunisolar calendar have been undertaken. Today, the traditional Buddhist lunisolar calendar is used for Theravada Buddhist festivals, no longer has the official calendar status anywhere; the Thai Buddhist Era, a renumbered Gregorian calendar, is the official calendar in Thailand. The calculation methodology of the current versions of Southeast Asian Buddhist calendars is based on that of the Burmese calendar, in use in various Southeast Asian kingdoms down to the 19th century under the names of Chula Sakarat and Jolak Sakaraj; the Burmese calendar in turn was based on the "original" Surya Siddhanta system of ancient India. One key difference with Indian systems is that the Burmese system has followed a variation of the Metonic cycle, it is unclear from where, how the Metonic system was introduced. The Burmese system, indeed the Southeast Asian systems, thus use a "strange" combination of sidereal years from Indian calendar in combination with the Metonic cycle better for tropical years.
In all Theravada traditions, the calendar's epochal year 0 date was the day in which the Buddha attained parinibbāna. However, not all traditions agree on when it took place. In Burmese Buddhist tradition, it was 13 May 544 BCE, but in Thailand, it was 11 March 545 BCE, the date which the current Thai lunisolar and solar calendars use as the epochal date. Yet, the Thai calendars for some reason have fixed the difference between their Buddhist Era numbering and the Christian/Common Era numbering at 543, which points to an epochal year of 544 BCE, not 545 BCE. In Myanmar, the difference between BE and CE can be 543 or 544 for CE dates, 544 or 543 for BCE dates, depending on the month of the Buddhist Era. In Sri Lanka, the difference between BE and CE is 544; the calendar recognizes two types of months: sidereal month. The Synodic months are used to compose the years while the 27 lunar sidereal days, alongside the 12 signs of the zodiac, are used for astrological calculations; the days of the month are counted in two halves and waning.
The 15th of the waxing is the civil full moon day. The civil new moon day is the last day of the month; because of the inaccuracy of the calendrical calculation systems, the mean and real New Moons coincide. The mean New Moon precedes the real New Moon; as the Synodic lunar month is 29.5 days, the calendar uses alternating months of 29 and 30 days. Various regional versions of Chula Sakarat/Burmese calendar existed across various regions of mainland Southeast Asia. Unlike Burmese systems, Lan Na, Lan Xang and Sukhothai systems refer to the months by numbers, not by names; this means reading ancient texts and inscriptions in Thailand requires constant vigilance, not just in making sure one is operating for the correct region, but for variations within regions itself when incursions cause a variation in practice. However, Cambodian month system, which begins with Margasirsa as the first month, demonstrated by the names and numbers; the Buddhist calendar is a lunisolar calendar in which the months are based on lunar months and years are based on solar years.
One of its primary objectives is to synchronize the lunar part with the solar part. The lunar months twelve of them, consist alternately of 29 days and 30 days, such that a normal lunar year will contain 354 days, as opposed to the solar year of ~365.25 days. Therefore, some form of addition to the lunar year is necessary; the overall basis for it is provided by cycles of 57 years. Eleven extra days are inserted in every 57 years, seven extra months of 30 days are inserted in every 19 years; this provides 20819 complete days to both calendars. This 57-year cycle would provide a mean year of about 365.2456 days and a mean month of about 29.530496 days, if not corrected. As such, the calendar adds an intercalary month in leap years and sometimes an intercalary day in great leap years; the intercalary month not only corrects the length of the year but corrects the accumulating error of the month to extent of half a day. The average length of the month is further corrected by adding a day to Nayon
Chinese calendar
The traditional China calendar, or Former Calendar, Traditional Calendar or Lunar Calendar, is a lunisolar calendar which reckons years and days according to astronomical phenomena. It is defined by GB/T 33661-2017, "Calculation and promulgation of the Chinese calendar", issued by the Standardisation Administration of China on 12 May 2017. Although modern day China uses the Gregorian calendar, the traditional Chinese calendar governs holidays in China and in overseas Chinese communities, it lists the dates of traditional Chinese holidays and guides people in selecting auspicious days for weddings, moving, or starting a business. Like Chinese characters, variants of this calendar are used in different parts of the Chinese cultural sphere. Korea and the Ryukyu Islands adopted the calendar, it evolved into Korean and Ryukyuan calendars; the main difference from the traditional Chinese calendar is the use of different meridians, which leads to some astronomical events—and calendar events based on them—falling on different dates.
The traditional Japanese calendar derived from the Chinese calendar, but its official use in Japan was abolished in 1873 as part of reforms after the Meiji Restoration. Calendars in Mongolia and Tibet have absorbed elements of the traditional Chinese calendar, but are not direct descendants of it. Days begin and end at midnight, months begin on the day of the new moon. Years begin on the second new moon after the winter solstice. Solar terms govern the end of each month. Written versions in ancient China included stems and branches of the year and the names of each month, including leap months as needed. Characters indicated whether a month was short; the traditional Chinese calendar was developed between 771 and 476 BC, during the Spring and Autumn period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. Before the Zhou dynasty, solar calendars were used. One version of the solar calendar is the five-elements calendar. A 365-day year was divided into five phases of 73 days, with each phase corresponding to a Day 1 Wu Xing element.
A phase began followed by six 12-day weeks. Each phase consisted of two three-week months. Years began followed by a bǐngzǐ day and a 72-day fire phase. Other days were tracked using the Yellow River Map. Another version is a four-quarters calendar. Weeks were ten days long, with one month consisting of three weeks. A year had 12 months, with a ten-day week intercalated in summer as needed to keep up with the tropical year; the 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches were used to mark days. A third version is the balanced calendar. A year was 365.25 days, a month was 29.5 days. After every 16th month, a half-month was intercalated. According to oracle bone records, the Shang dynasty calendar was a balanced calendar with 12 to 14 months in a year; the first lunisolar calendar was the Zhou calendar, introduced under the Zhou dynasty. This calendar set the beginning of the year at the day of the new moon before the winter solstice, it set the shàngyuán as the winter solstice of a dīngsì year, making the year it was introduced around 2,758,130.
Several competing lunisolar calendars were introduced by states fighting Zhou control during the Warring States period. The state of Lu issued its own Lu calendar. Jin issued the Xia calendar in AD 102, with a year beginning on the day of the new moon nearest the March equinox. Qin issued the Zhuanxu calendar, with a year beginning on the day of the new moon nearest the winter solstice. Song's Yin calendar began its year on the day of the new moon after the winter solstice; these calendars are known as the six ancient calendars, or quarter-remainder calendars, since all calculate a year as 365 1⁄4 days long. Months begin on the day of the new moon, a year has 12 or 13 months. Intercalary months are added to the end of the year; the Qiang and Dai calendars are modern versions of the Zhuanxu calendar, used by mountain peoples. After Qin Shi Huang unified China under the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, the Qin calendar was introduced, it followed most of the rules governing the Zhuanxu calendar, but the month order was that of the Xia calendar.
The intercalary month, known as the second Jiǔyuè, was placed at the end of the year. The Qin calendar was used into the Han dynasty. Emperor Wu of Han r. 141 – 87 BC introduced reforms halfway through his reign. His Taichu Calendar defined a solar year as 365 385⁄1539 days, the lunar month was 29 43⁄81 days; this calendar introduced the 24 solar terms. Solar terms were paired, with the 12 combined periods known as climate terms; the first solar term of the period was known as a pre-climate, the second was a mid-climate. Months were named for the mid-climat
Minguo calendar
The Republic of China calendar is the official calendar of the Republic of China. It is used to number the years for official purposes only in the Taiwan area after 1949, it was used in the Chinese mainland from 1912 until the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Following the Chinese imperial tradition of using the sovereign's era name and year of reign, official ROC documents use the Republic system of numbering years in which the first year was 1912, the year of the establishment of the Republic of China. Months and days are numbered according to the Gregorian calendar; the Gregorian calendar was adopted by the nascent Republic of China effective 1 January 1912 for official business, but the general populace continued to use the traditional Chinese calendar. The status of the Gregorian calendar was unclear between 1916 and 1921 while China was controlled by several competing warlords each supported by foreign colonial powers. From about 1921 until 1928 warlords continued to fight over northern China, but the Kuomintang or Nationalist government controlled southern China and used the Gregorian calendar.
After the Kuomintang reconstituted the Republic of China on 10 October 1928, the Gregorian calendar was adopted, effective 1 January 1929. The People's Republic of China has continued to use the Gregorian calendar since 1949. Despite the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, the numbering of the years was still an issue; the Chinese imperial tradition was to use the emperor's era year of reign. One alternative to this approach was to use the reign of the half-historical, half-legendary Yellow Emperor in the third millennium BC to number the years. In the early 20th century, some Chinese Republicans began to advocate such a system of continuously numbered years, so that year markings would be independent of the Emperor's regnal name; when Sun Yat-sen became the provisional president of the Republic of China, he sent telegrams to leaders of all provinces and announced the 13th day of 11th Month of the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor's reign to be the first year of the Republic of China. The original intention of the Minguo calendar was to follow the imperial practice of naming the years according to the number of years the Emperor had reigned, a universally recognizable event in China.
Following the establishment of the Republic, hence the lack of an Emperor, it was decided to use the year of the establishment of the current regime. This reduced the issue of frequent change in the calendar, as no Emperor ruled more than 61 years in Chinese history — the longest being the Kangxi Emperor, who ruled from 1662–1722; as Chinese era names are traditionally two characters long, 民國 is employed as an abbreviation of 中華民國. The first year, 1912, is called 民國元年 and 2010, the "99th year of the Republic" is 民國九十九年, 民國99年, or 99. Based on Chinese National Standard CNS 7648: Data Elements and Interchange Formats—Information Interchange—Representation of Dates and Times, year numbering may use the Gregorian system as well as the ROC era. For example, 3 May 2004 may be written 2004-05-03 or ROC 93-05-03; the ROC era numbering happens to be the same as the numbering used by the Juche calendar of North Korea, because its founder, Kim Il-sung, was born in 1912. The years in Japan's Taishō period coincide with those of the ROC era.
In addition to the ROC's Minguo calendar, Taiwanese continue to use the lunar Chinese calendar for certain functions such as the dates of many holidays, the calculation of people's ages, religious functions. The use of the ROC era system extends beyond official documents. Misinterpretation is more in the cases when the prefix is omitted. There have been legislative proposals by pro-Taiwan Independence political parties, such as the Democratic Progressive Party to abolish the Republican calendar in favor of the Gregorian calendar. To convert any Gregorian calendar year between 1912 and the current year to Minguo calendar, 1912 needs to be subtracted from the year in question 1 added. East Asian age reckoning Public holidays in Taiwan
Balinese saka calendar
The Balinese saka calendar is one of two calendars used on the Indonesian island of Bali. Unlike the 210-day pawukon calendar, it is based on the phases of the Moon, is the same length as the Gregorian year. Based on a lunar calendar, the saka year comprises sasih, of 30 days each. However, because the lunar cycle is shorter than 30 days, the lunar year has a length of 354 or 355 days, the calendar is adjusted to prevent it losing synchronization with the lunar or solar cycles; the months are adjusted by allocating two lunar days to one solar day every 9 weeks. This day is called ngunalatri, Sanskrit for "minus one night". To stop the Saka from lagging behind the Gregorian calendar – as happens with the Islamic calendar, an extra month, known as an intercalary month, is added after the 11th month, or after the 12th month; the length of these months is calculated according to the normal 63-day cycle. An intercalary month is added whenever necessary to prevent the final day of the 7th month, known as Tilem Kapitu, from falling in the Gregorian month of December.
The names the twelve months are taken from a mixture of Old Balinese and Sanskrit words for 1 to 12, are as follows: Kasa Karo Katiga Kapat Kalima Kanem Kapitu Kawalu Kasanga Kadasa Jyestha SadhaEach month begins the day after a new moon and has 15 days of waxing moon until the full moon 15 days of waning, ending on the new moon. Both sets of days are numbered 1 to 15; the first day of the year is the day after the first new moon in March. Note, that Nyepi falls on the first day of Kadasa, that the years of the Saka era are counted from that date; the calendar is 78 years behind the Gregorian calendar, is calculated from the beginning of the Saka Era in India. It is used alongside the 210-day Balinese pawukon calendar, Balinese festivals can be calculated according to either year; the Indian saka calendar was used for royal decrees as early as the ninth century CE. The same calendar was used in Java until Sultan Agung replaced it with the Javanese calendar in 1633; the Balinese Hindu festival of Nyepi, the day of silence, marks the start of the Saka year.
Tilem Kepitu, the last day of the 7th month, is known as Siva Ratri, is a night dedicated to the god Shiva. Devotees stay up all meditate. There are another 24 ceremonial days in the Saka year celebrated at Purnama. Eiseman, Fred B. Jr, Bali: Sekalia and Niskala Volume I: Essays on Religion and Art pp 182–185, Periplus Editions, 1989 ISBN 0-945971-03-6 Haer, Debbie Guthrie. ISBN 981 3018 496 Hobart, Angela. ISBN 0 631 17687 X Ricklefs, M. C.
Islamic calendar
The Islamic, Muslim, or Hijri calendar is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to determine the proper days of Islamic holidays and rituals, such as the annual period of fasting and the proper time for the pilgrimage to Mecca; the civil calendar of all countries where the religion is predominantly Muslim is the Gregorian calendar. Notable exceptions to this rule are Afghanistan, which use the Solar Hijri calendar. Rents and similar regular commitments are paid by the civil calendar; the Islamic calendar employs the Hijri era whose epoch was established as the Islamic New Year of 622 AD/CE. During that year and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib and established the first Muslim community, an event commemorated as the Hijra. In the West, dates in this era are denoted AH in parallel with the Christian and Jewish eras. In Muslim countries, it is sometimes denoted as H from its Arabic form. In English, years prior to the Hijra are reckoned as BH.
The current Islamic year is 1440 AH. In the Gregorian calendar, 1440 AH runs from 11 September 2018 to 30 August 2019. For central Arabia Mecca, there is a lack of epigraphical evidence but details are found in the writings of Muslim authors of the Abbasid era. Inscriptions of the ancient South Arabian calendars reveal the use of a number of local calendars. At least some of these South Arabian calendars followed the lunisolar system. Both al-Biruni and al-Mas'udi suggest that the ancient Arabs used the same month names as the Muslims, though they record other month names used by the pre-Islamic Arabs; the Islamic tradition is unanimous in stating that Arabs of Tihamah and Najd distinguished between two types of months and forbidden months. The forbidden months were four months during which fighting is forbidden, listed as Rajab and the three months around the pilgrimage season, Dhu al-Qa‘dah, Dhu al-Hijjah, Muharram. Information about the forbidden months is found in the writings of Procopius, where he describes an armistice with the Eastern Arabs of the Lakhmid al-Mundhir which happened in the summer of 541 AD/CE.
However, Muslim historians do not link these months to a particular season. The Qur'an links the four forbidden months with Nasī’, a word that means "postponement". According to Muslim tradition, the decision of postponement was administered by the tribe of Kinanah, by a man known as the al-Qalammas of Kinanah and his descendants. Different interpretations of the concept of Nasī’ have been proposed; some scholars, both Muslim and Western, maintain that the pre-Islamic calendar used in central Arabia was a purely lunar calendar similar to the modern Islamic calendar. According to this view, Nasī’ is related to the pre-Islamic practices of the Meccan Arabs, where they would alter the distribution of the forbidden months within a given year without implying a calendar manipulation; this interpretation is supported by Arab historians and lexicographers, like Ibn Hisham, Ibn Manzur, the corpus of Qur'anic exegesis. This is corroborated by an early Sabaic inscription, where a religious ritual was "postponed" due to war.
According to the context of this inscription, the verb ns'’ has nothing to do with intercalation, but only with moving religious events within the calendar itself. The similarity between the religious concept of this ancient inscription and the Qur'an suggests that non-calendaring postponement is the Qur'anic meaning of Nasī’; the Encyclopaedia of Islam concludes "The Arabic system of can only have been intended to move the Hajj and the fairs associated with it in the vicinity of Mecca to a suitable season of the year. It was not intended to establish a fixed calendar to be observed." The term "fixed calendar" is understood to refer to the non-intercalated calendar. Others concur that it was a lunar calendar, but suggest that about 200 years before the Hijra it was transformed into a lunisolar calendar containing an intercalary month added from time to time to keep the pilgrimage within the season of the year when merchandise was most abundant; this interpretation was first proposed by the medieval Muslim astrologer and astronomer Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, by al-Biruni, al-Mas'udi, some western scholars.
This interpretation considers Nasī’ to be a synonym to the Arabic word for "intercalation". The Arabs, according to one explanation mentioned by Abu Ma'shar, learned of this type of intercalation from the Jews; the Jewish Nasi was the official. Some sources say that the Arabs followed the Jewish practice and intercalated seven months over nineteen years, or else that they intercalated nine months over 24 years. Postponement of one ritual in a particular circumstance does not imply alteration of the sequence of months, scholars agree that this did not happen. Al-Biruni says this did not happen, the festivals were kept within their season by intercalation every second or third year of a month between Dhu al-Hijjah and Muharram, he says that, in terms of the fixed calendar, not introduced until 10 AH, the first intercalation was, for example, of a month between Dhu al-Hijjah and Muharram, the second of a month between Muharram and Safar, the third of a month between Safar and Rabi'I, so on. The intercalations were arranged.
The notice of interca
