It took planet earth 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds to go around the sun. "This cannot be changed," it was explained. However back in 1834, the Italian priest Marco Mastrofini suggested the calendar could be changed and proposed the World Calendar for keeping time. Central Press correspondent Henry Nicholas made the observation in 1950, "Man has been continuously changing his way of measuring time since the dawn of recorded history." Calendar reforms had become the most sought after issue in the 20th century. It was first proposed by the International Chamber of Commerce in 1910. Then in 1929, Elisabeth Achelis spearheaded the campaign and eventually founded the World Calendar Association in 1946. In 1956, the World Calendar proposal was submitted to the United Nations for consideration.
The presence "changeable" Gregorian calendar (named after Pope Gregory XIII) came into effect in 1582, replacing the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar) when it was discovered that the Julian calendar had 10 days more than the actual solar year. However, the Gregorian calendar was "changeable" because the dates did not fall on the same days each year. For example, Christmas could fall on any day of the week from year to year. The proposed "perpetual" World Calendar would be arranged so that the days would always be permanently fixed year in and year out. As pointed out, "The World Calendar has 4 equal quarters (or seasons) of 13 weeks. Four times 13 equal 52 weeks, which is 364 days (7 days per week times 52 weeks equal 364 days per year)...Exactly 364 days, 52 weeks, 4 season periods and 12 months." In the World Calendar, the 365th day of each year became a "Worldsday" (*) sandwiched between December 30 and January 1. And on a leap year, the "Worldsday" (**) would be inserted between June 30 and July 1.
Back in 1950, Henry told readers, "The ancient Hebrews did not divide their day into hours. The daytime was divided into 4 parts. Later when the Hebrews came under the control of the Romans they followed the Roman policy of dividing the daytime into 12 hours. However, their hours were not like our hours of 60 minutes each. Their first hour began with the sunrise and the last hour ended with sunset. The days and thus the hours were longer in summer and shorter in winter. In Palestine the hours varied during the year from as little as 49 minutes in the winter to as much as 79 minutes in the summer. This was the first, and it proved to be an efficient method of daylight saving time." Elisabeth told reporter John Sembower, "The Hebrew calendar marks time from Creation, which some church men have set at 3,760 years and 3 months before the birth of Christ. Islam reckons its calendar from 622AD, the year of Muhammad's flight from Mecca."
In 1949, the Inter-American Press Congress from Panama stated their case, "The ideal of the whole world is to have a logical and perpetual calendar to replace the present Gregorian calendar, because it is widely recognized that the calendar we now use is unsatisfactory for economic, social, educational, scientific and other activities of men. Modern progress demands the change. Such revision has been the subject of the study and research on the part of experts, institutions and international organizations for many years. The general concensus was that a new time system was necessary, adhering to the customary 12 months; but that it should be fixed, uniform. An invariable calendar, perpetually the same, regulated astronomically according to the movement of the earth around the sun, and consequently more regular, more scientific and more advantageous from every point of view than the present Gregorian calendar."
It was reported the resolution adopted at the Inter-American Press Congress argued that, "The reform of the present calendar has the high scientific authority of the institutions and persons who conceived it and has furthermore the decided support of numerous governments and institutions and highly qualified persons. Considering that the present calendar, by reason of its variations and changes from year to year and of the arbitrary differences which exist in its months and its quarters, is the cause of numerous difficulties and disturbances in the political, social, economic, religious and cultural life of all peoples; that the World Calendar scientifically corrects all these inconveniences and defects and provides a fixed, uniform, invariable and perpetual system of measuring time, regulated according to the movement of the earth around the sun; that in a world which is tending toward unity and harmony the adoption and maintenance of a universal time system, which has as its basis the uniformity, perpetuity and exactitude which characterize the World Calendar, is indispensable."
In Latin America at the time the World Calendar had won the support of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
