Bonza Bottler Day – January 1, 2024

History of Bonza Bottler Day

We say that Bonza Bottler Day is a celebration of each month of the year. Our calendar as we know it can be traced back to 735 B.C., during the reign of the founder and the first emperor of Rome, Romulus. Although the calendar had 12 months, only 10 of them were officially named, and the rest of the days of the year were regarded as a period of government and military inactivity. The calendar year began in March (Martius), in honor of Mars, the god of war, and ended in December, the tenth month.

Numa Pompilius, the second emperor of Rome, made additional calendar modifications in 713 B.C., as the calendar grew more important to the Roman state. The first was the introduction of two new months, January (Ianuarius) and February (Februarius). The second was the assignment of an odd number of days to each month, bringing the total number of days in a year from 304 to 355. Intercalation was introduced to ensure that the calendar is in sync with the seasons. In some years, additional days can be added in the second half of February. January and February were originally added after the end of the liturgical year, but by 450 B.C., the former was widely accepted as the year’s first month.

The introduction of intercalation resulted in political abuse of the calendar. Since the length of intercalations was determined by the Pontifices, they utilized the device to lengthen the term of an ally and shorten that of an opponent. When Julius Caesar became ‘pontifex maximus,’ he decided to clear the mess by combining the good points of the Egyptian, Roman, and Greek calendars. The Numa calendar was transformed to a fixed 365-day calendar with a leap year length of 366 days every fourth year. In 45 B.C., the calendar came into effect.

Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar, which was based on the Julian calendar, in 1582. The calendar was first adopted in Spain, Portugal, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and most of Italy, and it wasn’t until 1752 that Britain and the American colonies began using it.