Am attempt to create a
standard,
scientific and
consistent calendar for our
rational (
businesslike) times. Proponents of this plan published a journal (the Journal of Calendar Reform) and hoped to implement their new
calendar starting in
1950. I only have Volume 17 (1947) of said Jouranl, so i don't know what finally happened to them*. Apparently, they had the support of such luminaries as
Pope Pius X,
Mohandas Gandhi, and
Ephraim Frisch, a rabbi in
San Antonio,
Texas. The following is from the journal, first quarter 1947:
The World Calendar divides the year into four equal quarters of 91 days each. In our present Gregorian calendar there are 90 days, and 91 days in leap years, 91 days, and 92 days and 92 days in each quarter. This inequality is complicating and causes many complex, difficult, and practically impossible adjustments for statistical and other purposes. In The World Calendar each quarter begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday, contains 3 months, 13 weeks, or 91 days. Each quarter is identical with the others. The first month of each quarter has 31 days, followed by two months of 30 days, and each month has 26 weekdays plus Sundays.
The Gregorian calendar has 181 days - and 182 days in leap years - in the first half year and 184 days in the second half of the year. Balance is obviously destroyed. The inequality of these two divisions of the year results in innumerable disadvantages and causes many difficulties. In The World Calendar each half year begins on Sunday and ends Saturday, and both halves of the year have exactly 182 days. The half years are synchronized with the months.
By a shift of only a few days, eight in all, one being the World Holiday at the end of the year and the other the Leap-Year Day, The World Calendar provides an ordered and reliable time-table for the year. It retains the familiar 12 months of the year. Five months correspond to the comparable days of the Gregorian calendar, namely, January, September, October, November, and December. The dates during the six months betwen September 1 and February 28 would remain exactly as they are at present.
This isn't a joke. This is real.
* They still exist! Check out www.worldcalendar.org for their current activities.