A History of Time - Months & Years

How did the months of the year get their names? Why are there 12 months of 31, 30 and 28 days? Why is New Year in January? And what is up with leap year?

Time, it marches on relentlessly outside of human control. But humanity has long found a variety of ways to mark our passage through the eons. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. But why do we count our collective journey through the ages in these integers? A day makes sense, that’s one rotation of the earth on its axis and can easily be marked by the rising and setting of the sun. And a year is one orbit of the earth around the sun, traveling through the 4 seasons again and again. But why 60 seconds in a minute, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week and 12 months in a year? Let’s look back through history to learn the varied origins of these odd measures of time.

I make mini documentaries about women's history and royal history:
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Music: "Dream Of The Ancestor" by Asher Fulero

[riverAmazonNZ]

“the Church followed the calendar religiously” lol!

[TheMaryberry]

Have you ever thought about narrating children's or young adult books? I think you have a soothing yet clear and engaging voice and would do really well at it!!

[Twilekmaniac]

The traditional Japanese calendar has a system of Era Names to keep track of the year. They currently follow a format of using the reigning emperor's posthumous name and how many years they have reigned. For example, 2021 is considered to be the 3rd year of the Reiwa era (令和三年) because it's the 3rd year of the current emperor's reign, and when he dies his posthumous name will be Emperor Reiwa (令和天皇), which is how each Emperor since Emperor Meiji has had their era names decided. Before that, it was much more flexible, and era names were often changed after natural disasters to try to avoid bad luck

[MarkusDarkscribe]

I bet this took a lot of research hours. Thanks for the hard work.

[extraterrestrial]

I love how the Romans literally had superstition dictating their calendar. I also always wondered why July + August are out of the regular 30/31 rhythm and now I learned something as simple as human vanity is behind it. Also the fact that politicians even two thousand years ago were the same as current politicians and were the first ones to immediately abuse the leap month for their own purposes. Even this small fragment of human history about timekeeping tells so much about our history. Well done video!

[claragrica]

My grandmother was great at this calendar thing. Once she met a guy that was kind of famous and loved to say he was born in february 29th and once he and my grandmother met and since she loved those things she mantions it during a conversation. So he stated "I was born in february 29th 1900", to what my grandmother replied "But 1900 wasn't a leap year". The guy was so embaressed because he was caught in his lie that my grandmother regret saying that like that in front of other people.

[phoebejohnson]

Honestly Lindsey is one of my idols !
I love history
It is my passion and my dream job to be a historian and she is one of the ones who have made me amazed with history.

[kasashaasreadingjournal]

I'm from New Zealand and here we have Matariki, the Maori New year. The Maori are the natives of New Zealand. Matariki takes place in June.

[BrickFan]

You've quickly become one of my favorite Youtube channels. You have a great way of presenting a lot of information into nice, succinct videos that are easy to understand.

[JennieBlinkXoldier]

you never failed to have quality and informative videos

[Kingpowch]

Now imagine if the south and north hemisphere had different month names after their own seasons.
While April is the month of opening and blossom, in the South is autumn.

[lovelaughlivelisa]

10:30. There is an inaccuracy. The Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year as you call it, is actually February 12 in 2021. It was January 25 in 2020.

[WhiteRabbit]

Your voice is so soothing. I listen to your videos in the shower and I swear it’s just as effective as therapy

[mmm-]

This popped up on my recommended in perfect timing. I’m learning Greek and seeing the months I think to myself “where are these names coming from?!” So interesting and spectacular that so many words today have their own history!

[davidhibbs]

I’ve only recently started watching Lindsey’s videos but already like them a lot, especially the History of Christmas

[IllnessIllusions]

This got me thinking that in Finland most of the weekdays got their names from vikings but for some reason months weren't based on latin. Instead, Finns named the months after nature. Also, back in the old days new year "kekri" was celebrated at the beginning of November around the time of modern Halloween.

[anubratabit]

'must have gotten called to dinner by his wolf mother'
LOL

[bidishasarma]

The way they hated February tho ...not cool😂

[gaz]

I got half way through and was totally lost so I let it play on the tv while I made a snack lol.
Couldn’t follow a second of it.

[ambreeniram]

Lovely voice. Thank you for enriching our knowledge about date and time.