#but somebody posted screenshots of the earthsky article

[cherryblossomshadow]

Ides of March

The Romans considered the day a deadline for settling debts, maybe similar to our looming Tax Day here in the U.S. 

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In the ancient Roman calendar, each month had an Ides. For the months of March, May, July and October, the Ides fell on the 15th day. In every other month, the Ides fell on the 13th day.

The word Ides derives from a Latin word that means to divide. In the beginning, the Ides marked the full moons, but because calendar months and lunar months were different lengths, they quickly got out of step.

The Romans also had a name for the first day of every month: the Kalends. Our word calendar derives from Kalends.

In fact, our modern calendar is very much like the one that Julius Caesar enacted the year before his death. It had 365 days and 12 months each year. It even took into account the fact that Earth’s orbit around the sun isn’t a whole number of days by adding a leap day every few years.

Georgianna Ziegler: The concept of the Ides of March would have resonated with English citizens in 1599, the year Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar was probably performed. This whole business of the Ides of March and timekeeping in the play would have had a strong impact on audiences. They were really struck by the differences between their Julian calendar [a revision of the Roman calendar created by Caesar] and the Gregorian calendar kept in Catholic countries on the continent. Because the two calendars featured years of slightly different lengths, they had diverged significantly by the late 16th century and were several days apart