Shakespeare's Birthday

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bedraggled
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Shakespeare's Birthday

Post by bedraggled » Sun Apr 23, 2017 8:46 am

Forsooth!

Verily, it is the Bard's day- April 23!
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dualstow
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Re: Shakespeare's Birthday

Post by dualstow » Sun Apr 23, 2017 8:56 am

Beware the ides of march?
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Marlb10
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Re: Shakespeare's Birthday

Post by Marlb10 » Thu Apr 27, 2017 7:29 am

Really 23rd April? I thought it was 23rd May. :-\
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Xan
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Re: Shakespeare's Birthday

Post by Xan » Thu Apr 27, 2017 7:37 am

If we were to correct for the calendar change, it would be closer to 14th April. We do it for George Washington.
bedraggled
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Re: Shakespeare's Birthday

Post by bedraggled » Thu Apr 27, 2017 10:10 am

"They" said it was April 23rd. The high school English teacher said it was April 23rd.

Can someone clarify this? Bill and I share the same birthday!!!

What's a poster to do? (Is my birthday T-shirt with Bill's picture now fit for car waxing?)!?!?!

Cheers!
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Xan
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Re: Shakespeare's Birthday

Post by Xan » Thu Apr 27, 2017 10:24 am

It's sometimes complicated to compare dates across eras.

Shakespeare was born on a day called April 23, but it's not really the same as what we mean now by April 23rd. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582. The primary change from the previous Julian calendar was that the Julian calendar had a leap year every four years, and the Gregorian calendar does not have leap years in years that are multiples of 100 (except when they're multiples of 400). So 2000 was a leap year, which felt normal, but it was actually an exception of an exception!

The Catholic countries adopted the new calendar more-or-less immediately. The Protestant countries were much slower and more varied in their adoption. England and her dependencies were one of the last to adopt it, in the mid 1700s. The Eastern Orthodox Church is still holding out.

Anyway. The difference between the calendars at the time of adoption was (I believe) 10 days. Or close to that. So, Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in the Julian calendar, and he died April 23, 1616 in the Julian calendar. You'll often hear that Cervantes and Shakespeare died on the same day. Well, not really. Cervantes died on April 23, 1616 in Spain, in the Gregorian calendar. So he died ~10 days before Shakespeare.

George Washington was born February 11, 1732 in the Julian calendar, and died December 14, 1799 in the Gregorian calendar. We celebrate the official holiday "Washington's Birthday" on a Monday orbiting February 22, which is the converted date from February 11.

Complicating all this is the fact that in England, New Year's Day was March 25th, also known as "Lady Day". Being 9 months before Christmas, it's considered to be the day of the Annunciation to Mary. So days like February 11 are considered to be part of the previous year. Taxes in the UK are still due March 25 as a vestige of this historical New Year.

tldr: it can be very hard to compare dates across eras.
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Re: Shakespeare's Birthday

Post by bedraggled » Thu Apr 27, 2017 11:04 am

Perspective: since Christmas, Chanukah, Easter and Passover either shift around or are maybe assigned a date, I'm OK with Bill's b-day on April 23. Ergo, I will keep my birthday T-shirt with the Bard's picture, not wax the car with it and live harmoniously.

Please don't shut down the discussion, though.

Again, cheers!
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dualstow
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Re: Shakespeare's Birthday

Post by dualstow » Thu Apr 27, 2017 8:20 pm

Interesting, Bedraggled. I know that Hanukkah and Passover "shift around" simply because they are on a lunar calendar, like Chinese festivals.

I did not know about Easter, but found it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter#Date
Christmas is more of an argument, a debate.

Shakespeare's wiki entry gives his baptismal date as April 26th.

Overlapping a bit with what Xan wrote:
His actual date of birth remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, Saint George's Day.[9] This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar's mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616.
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