I came across the idea of having a fixed, 13-month calendar, on Reddit, and it immediately sparked my interest. Each month would have four weeks, and every month would start on a Monday.
Someone then shared a link to the Wikipedia page of something called the “International Fixed Calendar“. Either this is where the Redditor got the idea from, or it’s just a coincidence. Anyway, it sounds good to me!
It means that every single day of the year will always be the same day of the week. Which, in my opinion, makes so much sense.
So every month would look like this:
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
Thirteenth Month
The proposed name for the thirteenth month would be “Sol”, and it would be placed between June and July. The name Sol represents the Sun, as it falls on the mid-year solstice.
Recalculation
This would, of course, require all current dates to be recalculated. So your birthday would change, and other events like Easter, that change every year.
Leap Years
You may be thinking “this sounds good, but what about leap years?”. You’ll be pleased to know that the idea of a “Leap Day”, it occurs on the 29th of June. However, it is not classed as being part of any week, and is situated between the Saturday June 28 and Sunday Sol 1.
New Years Day
It’s a similar situation for New Years Day. But as you may already know, this happens every year. New Years Day would be another “bonus” day on the 29th of December. It too is between the last Saturday of the year, and the first Sunday of the proceeding year.
Why Aren’t We Using It?
There’s three main reasons why were aren’t using this calendar right now:
- It doesn’t easily support quarters. Right now we have three months in a quarter, but in this calendar, it would be three months and one week.
- Some religions oppose it, as traditions like worshiping on every seventh day, would mess up on a Leap Day or New Years Day.
- We just aren’t used to it. And therefore a lot of dates would have to be changed, and the systems we have in place would need to adapt.
Converter
There’s no converter online that I can find right now, so hopefully I can find one soon, or maybe I’ll have to make one and upload it myself.