Today may or may not be Shrove Monday which has no fixed date because Easter has no fixed date, presumably because it didn't happen on a specific date, or happened on a roving magic date, or something or other. Similarly, a whole lot of other Holy Days lack fixed dates, but that is partially due a defect in early recordkeeping. When you date things by references like "the fourth day after the third new moon in that year when it was extra rainy and the pigs got fat" this kind of uncertainty can creep in.

OK, I don't particularly capisce any of that shrovetide stuff, so I checked the wiki, which told me:

Shrove Monday, sometimes known as Collopy Monday, Rose Monday, Merry Monday or Hall Monday, is a Christian observance falling on the Monday before Ash Wednesday every year. A part of the English traditional Shrovetide celebrations of the week before Lent, the Monday precedes Shrove Tuesday. As the Monday before Ash Wednesday, it is part of diverse Carnival celebrations which take place in many parts of the Christian world, from Greece, to Germany, to the Mardi Gras and Carnival of the Americas.

The word shrove is the past tense of the English verb shrive, which means to obtain absolution for one's sins by way of confession and doing penance. Thus Shrovetide gets its name from the shriving that English Christians were expected to do prior to receiving absolution immediately before Lent begins. Shrove Tuesday is the last day of "shrovetide", somewhat analogous to the Carnival tradition that developed separately in countries of Latin Europe. The terms "Shrove Monday" and "Shrove Tuesday" are no longer widely used in the United States or Canada outside of liturgical traditions, such as in the Lutheran, Anglican, and Roman Catholic Churches.

OK, Monday before Ash Wednesday, whenever that is; time to stop digging, it could go on forever. The funny thing is, that this is in the new, vastly improved calendar specifically written to sort out the whole "when the heck is Easter this year?" problemo

So, per the wiki, SHROVE Monday is past tense, as in I done been shrivened, without my knowledge or consent, mind you. Also, however, without jumping through any hoops, quel miracle!. All I can think of is that one used to be have to buy indulgences, pardons, absolutions and all that for cash or other valuables. So hey, whatever, right?

OK, down to business - on this day in 1582, noted astronomer and calendar expert Pope Gregory XIII issued the bull Inter gravissimas announcing and mandating the Gregorian calendar. This calendar revision was necessitated because the date of Easter was all out of whack. The First Council of Nicaea , back in the year 325, had mandated that henceforth all of Christendom would use March 21 as the date of the spring equinox in perpetuity regardless of when the real equinox occurred. In theory this would crate an error not to exceed 2 or 3 days, so no big deal. Easter would then be the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after the mandated Equinox. The Julian calendar was something of a joke and by 1500 March 21 was no longer reasonably close to the date of the real equinox which was arguably still no big deal because "who really cares about reality?", BUT Easter, as computed from said calendrical equinox was happening at the wrong time of year. Something Had To Be Done!

To solve the problem, Gregory hired some dude to replace the calendar. It is really some dude's calendar, but it is Gregory's Bull, so he gets the credit and also takes the rap. The finished product was based on a geocentric model of the universe but is pretty much a solar calendar that merely requires some regular periodic tweaking except for the years in which the tweaking needs tweaking. So now we know when Easter is, or was, right? Well, no. Remember that bit about the ecclesiastical full moon? Heh.

The date assigned to Easter (and assorted other holy days) in any year still floats because it is derived from a made up quasi lunar calendar. It does so without getting too far afield of the magikal fixed "equinox" date, because said fake lunar calendar somewhat closely approximates actual lunar behavior when averaged over the 19 year metonic cycle. The Mayan calendar had a far more accurate correspondence to celestial events, but it is a tad cumbersome and it truly appears that nobody actually has any clue as to the exact historic date of "Easter" and assorted other events, so who really cares if it bounces around a bit. Hence The Gregorian Calendar is the Official Holy All-Purpose Calendar in use by Europeans and those whose lands were conquered and stolen by Europeans.

On this day in history:

1582 – Pope Gregory XIII issued the bull Inter gravissimas, announcing/mandating the Gregorian calendar. It's nowhere near the best or most accurate, and not the oldest, but it is in use today because of the bull I guess.

1607 – One of the first works deemed to be opera, Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, premiered. Anna Russell never covered it, so pfah! *

1711 – Handel's Rinaldo premiered.

1803 – Marbury v. Madison, a masterwork of political blackmail, created the Supreme Court's power of judicial review.

1809 – London's Drury Lane Theatre burned to the ground, impoverishing Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

1821 – Mexico's revolutionary Plan Iguala was proclaimed.

1831 – The first removal treaty under the Indian Removal Act, The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, was proclaimed.

1863 – Arizona was organized as a US territory. It was no more organised on the 25th than on the 23rd, but this is the official story.

1868 – Andrew Johnson became the first US President of the United States to get impeached, and was acquitted like all the rest.

1876 – The stage première of Ibsen's Peer Gynt, with music by Edvard Grieg took place.

1895 – Revolution broke out in Baire, starting the Cuban War of Independence, which ended with the Spanish–American War in 1898.

1917 – The US ambassador to the UK was given the Zimmermann Telegram.

1942 – A false alarm started The Battle of Los Angeles, an anti-aircraft barrage that lasted into the early hours of February 25 damaging several cars and buildings, downing one weather balloon and killing 5 civilians.

1942 – An order-in-council passed under the Defence of Canada Regulations of the War Measures Act gave the Canadian federal government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin".

1946 – Colonel Juan Perón was elected to his first term as President of Argentina.

1976 – The current constitution of Cuba was formally proclaimed.

1983 – A special commission of the United States Congress condemned the Japanese American internment during World War II. Riiiight. Until the next time.

2008 – Fidel Castro retired as the President of Cuba and the Council of Ministers having outlived at least 4 US presidents and innumerable CIA officers, operatives, and hirelings who tried to have him assassinated or do the deed themselves. Heh.

- OPERA, Heh:

Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive. - Moliere

Some people who were born on this day:

It may be denied that women have anything to do with politics; it cannot be denied that politics have a great deal to do with women.

~~ Lydia Becker

1463 – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, philosopher
1604 – Arcangela Tarabotti, born Elena Tarabotti, nun and feminist. Got that?
1709 – Jacques de Vaucanson, engineer, built the first all metal lathe
1786 - William Grimm, anthropologist and author, one of "The Brothers Grimm"
1827 – Lydia Becker, activist
1836 – Winslow Homer, painter and illustrator
1869 – Zara DuPont, suffragist
1877 – Ettie Rout, educator and activist
1909 – August Derleth, anthologist and author
1919 – John Carl Warnecke, architect
1932 - Michel Legrand, pianist, conductor and composer
1933 – David "Fathead" Newman,saxophonist and composer
1941 – Joanie Sommers, singer and actress
1942 – Paul Jones, singer, harmonica player, and actor
1944 – Nicky Hopkins, keyboard player, session man (Yes, you have heard him, at least once)
1948 – Tim Staffell, singer and guitarist
1950 – George Thorogood, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1954 – Mike Pickering, DJ and saxophonist
1967 – Brian Schmidt, astrophysicist and academic
1975 - Ashley MacIsaac, fiddle player, singer and songwriter

Some people who died on this day:

The American dream of rags to riches is a dream for a reason - it is hard to achieve; were everyone to do it, it wouldn't be a dream but would rather be reality.

~~ Robert Fulton

1799 – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, physicist and academic
1810 – Henry Cavendish, physicist and chemist
1812 – Étienne-Louis Malus, physicist and mathematician
1815 – Robert Fulton, engineer
1825 – Thomas Bowdler, Bowdlerizer and proponent of same
1856 – Nikolai Lobachevsky, Russian mathematician and academic
1990 – Johnnie Ray, singer, songwriter, and pianist
1991 - George Goebel, actor and comedian
2001 – Claude Shannon, mathematician, cryptographer, and engineer

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

National Tortilla Chip Day
World Bartender Day
National Trading Card Day
Maybe Shrove Monday
So, by my count, that's three "go consume shit" and then shrove it, eh wot?

Today's Tunes

Peer Gynt

Michel Legrand

David "Fathead" Newman

Joanie Sommers

Paul Jones

Nicky Hopkins

Tim Staffell

George Thorogood

Mike Pickering

Ashley MacIsaac

Nikolai Lobachevsky

Johnnie Ray

George Goebel

Bonus Nicky Hopkins

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

Open Thread, Shrove Monday, Shrovetide, Nicky Hopkins, Gregorian Calendar, Marbury v Madison, Andrew Johnson, Cuba