Julian Day Numbers for dates on the

Gregorian and Julian Calendars

On the gangway the [sailing] master lowered his sextant, walked aft
to Mr Hervey and said, 'Twelve o'clock, sir: fifty-eight minutes [of
latitude] north.'

The first lieutenant turned to [Captain] Jack [Aubrey], took off his hat
and said, 'Twelve o'clock, sir, if you please, and fifty-eight minutes
north.'

Jack turned to the officer of the watch and said, 'Mr Nicholls, make it
twelve.'

The officer of the watch called out to the mate of the watch, 'Make it
twelve.'

The mate of the watch said to the quartermaster, 'Strike eight bells';
the quartermaster roared at the Marine sentry, 'Turn the glass and
strike the bell!'

Patrick O'Brian, H.M.S. Surprise, W.W. Norton & Company, 1973, p.118

Julian Day Numbers, or the Julian Date (JD), is the absolute count of days that have
elapsed since Noon 1 January 4713 BC on the Julian Calendar, or on what may more strictly
be called the Julian "Proleptic" Calendar, meaning the Julian Calendar as applied to an era
prior to its actual use. That use began with Julius Caesar in 46 BC. That the Julian Day begins
at Noon reflects the practice of the Astronomical or Nautical Day before 1925. The Civil
Day of the same calendar date begins the Midnight before the Astronomical or Nautical Day.
That a new President of the United States is sworn in at Noon, with the authority of the old
President active until then, may still reflect a sense that the day begins at that point.

The virtue of the Astronomical Day was that the observations of a single night could be
unambiguously ascribed to a single calendar day, something that might also have been nice
for the night naval battles off Guadalcanal. Otherwise, the astronomer must use a double date,
e.g. the night of 14-15 January, to avoid ambiguity -- exactly the practice that is now
required. The Nautical Day might take advantage of the astronomical practice, as navigators
shoot the stars to fix a ship's location, but the convention had more to do with the ritual of the
Noon Sighting, which, at least in the days of sail, was the moment that the ship's clocks
whould be reset to Local Apparent Time and a new calendar date recorded in the ship's log.
The Noon Sighting called for some considerable skill with the sextant, since the sun appears
to "hang" at its maximum elevation for a few moments, and the navigator must exercise his
experience and judgment to determine when the Meridian was reached. As commemorated
by Patrick O'Brian above, the Sailing Master was the one to perform this determination,
which is then communicated through no less than six levels of command before the hour
glass is turned [note].

The device of Julian Day Numbers was introduced by the polymath Joseph Justus Scaliger
(1540-1609). He named the "Julian Period," not after the Julian Calendar or even directly
after Julius Caesar, but in memory of his father, who happened to be named Julius Caesar
Scaliger (1484-1558). The relation of father and son sounds like that between James Mill
(1773-1836) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), who were among the principal exponents of
Utilitarianism. Where John Stuart Mill was being taught Greek at three, Scaliger's father
required him as a child to give a short speech in Latin every day. The elder Scaliger,
however, for some reason forbade the study of Greek, which the son took up on the father's
death, determining that "those who do not know Greek know nothing at all." As the younger
Mill seems to have been plagued by his father's memory the rest of his life, Scaliger was also
troubled, suffering from strange dreams and insomia and sometimes forgetting to eat. He
thought that he had once encountered the Devil. But Scaliger was also one of Europe's first
Arabists, having studied with Guillaume Postel (1510-1581), himself a very eccentric scholar,
ruled insane by the Inquisition, who obtained the first Chair of Arabic at the Collège de
France in 1539. Scaliger was invited to teach Arabic at Leiden in 1592. He hated lecturing
but was instrumental in establishing a Chair of Arabic at the University in 1599. One of
Scaliger's students, Thomas van Erpe, or Erpenius (1584-1625), produced the first modern
grammar of Arabic, the Grammatica Arabica (1613).

Julian Day Numbers effectively ended the use of the Egyptian calendar and the Era of
Nabonassar for astronomical purposes, as had been introduced by Claudius Ptolemy (c.100-
c.170 AD). Scaliger picked 4713 BC because it was the first year on a number of different
calendar cycles and was earlier than any possible historical dates that he knew of. "Julian
Day Numbers" may refer to integer numbers corresponding to whole days, while the
"Julian Date" may mean an integer plus decimal that brings the Julian count down to
precise parts of a day.

To convert dates from the Julian or Gregorian calendars to Julian Day Numbers, first the year
of the Julian Period must be determined. An AD year is simply added to 4713. Thus, 1997
yields 6710. Years BC must be expressed as negatives of AD years. 747 BC corresponds to -
746 AD (since 1 BC = 0 AD) = 3967. But the year of the Julian Period is awkward for
purposes of calculation. If 4713 BC is set to Year 0 instead of Year 1, this is more
convenient. The "Scaliger Year" is thus one less than the year of the Julian Period, and may
be obtained by adding 4712 instead of 4713 to the year of the AD era.

For the year 1997, the Scaliger Year is 6709. Also for purposes of calculation, the calendar
year is taken to begin on 1 March instead of January 1. January and February 1997 are thus
reckoned to be in 1996 (6708). The Scaliger Year is then divided by 4. 6709/4 = 1677 with a
remainder of 1. 1677 is the number of four years cycles in the Julian Calendar and 1 is the
year (0-3) in the current cycle.

1677 is then multipled by the number of days in four Julian years, 1461, and 1 is multiplied
by the number of days in a common Julian year, 365. 1677 x 1461 + 1 x 365 = 2,450,462

The Months of the Julian and Gregorian Calendars

Month Day Month Day MonthDay For the month, a day number
must be found on the
3. March 0 7. July 122 11. November 245 accompanying table. If we are in
the month of September, the
4. April 31 8. August 153 12. December 275 corresponding day number is
5. May 61 9. September 184 1. January 306 184.
6. June 92 10. October 214 2. February 337 With the day of the month, let's
say 21, the number for the month
(184) is added to the previous sum: 2,450,462 + 184 + 21 = 2,450,667.

Two things must be done to 2,450,667 before we are finished. First, since we are using 1
March as the beginning of the year, the number of days elapsed from 1 January 4713 to 0
March 4713 must added. That is 59.

Century Correction Century Correction Second, if we are using the Gregorian

Calendar, a correction must be added to
1582 1800 -12 reduce the date on the Julian calendar to that
-10 on the Gregorian. For the period of the use of
1600 1900 the Gregorian calendar, the corrections are
-13
1700 -11 2000 listed in the following table. The corrections
are listed as negative numbers so that ALL
numbers may be added to produce the Julian Day Number.

Thus, the Julian Day Number for 21 September 1997 on the Gregorian Calendar is 59 +
2,450,667 + -13 = 2,450,713. The Julian Date of the corresponding Civil Day, beginning the
previous midnight, may be obtained by subtracting 0.5 from the Julian Day Number:
2,450,667 - 0.5 = 2,450,712.5

Julian Day Numbers or Julian Dates are commonly stated in "myriads," i.e. 10,000s, instead
of thousands. Thus, JD 2,450,713 may be seen expressed as JD 2450 713 or as JD 245 0713.

Converting a Julian Day Number to Julian or Gregorian dates proceeds in reverse from the
procedure above. For example, JD 2,450,766. First 59 is subtracted from this = 2,450,707.

Century Correction Century Correction Then the entire number is to be divided by

1461. This yields a Quotient of 1677 and a
1582 1800 -12 Remainder of 610. The Remainder is then to
-10 be divided by 365, with the quotient and
1600 1900 remainder noted, in this case 1 and 245. The
-13
1700 -11 2000 Quotient (1677) is then multiplied by 4 and
added to the quotient (1) = 6709. This is the
Scaliger Year, unless the month turns out to be January or February. The AD year may be
obtained by subtracting 4712 = 1997. If we wish a date on the Gregorian Calendar, the
Gregorian Correction should be Subtracted from the remainder of the above procedure (245).
The Gregorian correction for 1997 is -13: 245 - -13 = 245 + 13= 258.

The Months of the Julian and Gregorian Calendars

Month Day Month Day Month Day The table of months is then
searched to find a day number
3. March 0 7. July 122 11. November 245 smaller than the remainder of
the procedure above (258). This
4. April 31 8. August 153 12. December 275 proves to be 245, for November.
5. May 61 9. September 184 1. January 306
Substracting 245 from 258 gives
6. June 92 10. October 214 2. February 337 us the day of the month = 13. JD
2,450,766 is thus Noon 13
November 1997 on the Gregorian Calendar. If we had found January or February in the
month table, we would reckon the date as in the following year (i.e. 1998)

Dates on the Julian Calendar are obtained simply by ignoring the factor of the Gregorian
Correction.

Julian Day Numbers, Note 1

Julian Day Numbers, Note 2

American usage, where the comma separates thousands and the period is used to indicate
decimals, is observed.

Islâmic Dates
with Julian Day Numbers

The Months of the Moslem Calendar

Months Days Months Days

1. 30 7. 30
al-Muh.arram Rajab

29 8. 29
2. S.afar
Sha'baan

30 9. 30
3.
 The calendar of Islâm is the Rabii'u l'awwal Ramad.aan
traditional calendar that was used in
Arabia as reformed by the Prophet
Muh.ammad. Since, like many 29 10. 29
4.
ancient luni-solar calendars, which Shawwaal
Rabii'u ttaanii
depending on the occasional
intercalation of extra months, the
received calendar was badly out of 5. 30 11. 30
step with the seasons, Muh.ammad Jumaadaa l'uulaa Duu l-Qa'dah
simply cut that connection altogether
by abolishing the intercalation of
months. 6. 29 12. 29/30
Jumaadaa l'aaxirah Duu l-H.ijjah
This step might seem like a strange
"reform," but it ended up suiting the ritual requirements of the calendar quite nicely. With a
common year of only 354 days, the calendar runs fast against the solar year; and dates move
entirely through the cycle of the seasons every 32 or 33 years. This means that the months of

, Ramad.ân, when Muslims are supposed to Fast the daylight hours, and

, Duu l-H.ijjah, when the Pilgrimage, the , H.ajj, may be undertaken to

Mecca, are not fixed in particular seasons. While one might prefer that Ramad.ân always
occurred in winter, when the days are short, it must be remembered that the seasons are
reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, which means that Ramad.ân would correspondingly
always be in summer in South Africa or Australia. With Ramad.ân moving forward about ten
days every year, the times of greater hardship are shared by all (although summer in the
Arctic or Antarctic would be particularly demanding -- something that might occasion the
allowed postponement of the Fast).

Year Day Year Day Year Day

00 0 10* 3543 20 7087
01 354 11 3898 21* 7441
02* 708 12 4252 22 7796
03 1063 13* 4606 23 8150
04 1417 14 4961 24* 8504
05* 1771 15 5315 25 8859
06 2126 16* 5669 26* 9213
07* 2480 17 5315 27 9568
08 2835 18* 6378 28 9922
09 3189 19 6733 29* 10276
30 10631
 * = leap years
The Hijjrah, , or Annô Hegirae (AH) Era,
is benchmarked to the day in 622 AD that Muh.ammad fled Mecca to take up the secular rule
of Medina. The full sophisticated mechanism of the calendar, with its cycle of intercalation of
11 days every 30 years, is the product of a later generation and thus of the flowering of
Islâmic philosophy and science in Baghdâd under the Abbasid Caliphs.

To convert an Islâmic or Annô Hegirae date to Julian Day Numbers, e.g. 7 Duu l-Qa'dah
1432 AH, first divide the year by 30, noting the Quotient and the Remainder of the division.
With 1432, this yields a Quoteint of 47 and a Remainder of 22. Multiply the Quotient by
10631, the number of days in the Islâmic 30-year calendar cycle. This yields 499,657. With
the Remainder, which is the year within the cycle, search the table at left for the year number
and note the corresponding number of days. Thus, year 22 corresponds to 7796 days.

Add 7796 to the previous product: 499,657 + 7796 = 507,453. Now, search the following
table for the month and note the corresponding day. For Duu l-Qa'dah, the day is 295. Add
the day number (295) for the month (Duu l-Qa'dah) and the day of the month (7) to the
previous product: 507,453 + 295 + 7
= 507,755.
The Months of the Moslem Calendar
The Julian Date or Julian Day
Number is then that number plus the Month Day Month Day
Islâmic Benchmark number, which
is 1948,085 -- the Julian Date of 0 1. al-Muh.arram 0 7. Rajab 177
Muh.arram 0 AH (cf. discussion of 2. S.afar 30 8. Sha'baan 207
zero in calendars). Thus 502,681 +
1948,085 = JD 2455,840. This 3. Rabii'u l'awwal 59 9. Ramad.aan 236
corresponds to 5 October 2011 on the
Gregorian calendar. 4. Rabii'u ttaanii 89 10. Shawwaal 266
5. Jumaadaa l-'uulaa 118 11. Duu l-Qa'dah 295
Since the Julian Day begins at Noon
(the pre-1925 convention of the 6. Jumaadaa l-'aaxirah 148 12. Duu l-H.ijjah 325
Astronomical or Nautical Day), the
Day Number for the corresponding Civil Day may be obtained by substracting 0.5 =
2455,839.5. This corresponds to 00:00h, midnight, 5 October 2011 on the Gregorian
calendar. The Islâmic Calendar Day itself begins at the previous Sunset whose civil time will
depend on the time of year, the latitude, and the time zone. This is not easily represented with
fractional Day Numbers (averaging N.25), so the integer day, JD 2455,840, is best used in
"tabular" fashion, to represent 7 Duu l-Qa'dah 1432 AH in its entirety.

As noted, the calendar intercalates a leap day 11 times in 30 years. This is added to the very
end of the year, to the month of Duu l-H.ijjah, and thus has no effect on the position of any
other day within the year. This avoids the complications that attend intercalations in the
Gregorian and Jewish years.

Year Day Year Day Year Day

00 0 10* 3543 20 7087
01 354 11 3898 21* 7441
02* 708 12 4252 22 7796 Converting the Julian Day Number to the Annô
Hegirae date repeats the above process in reverse.
03 1063 13* 4606 23 8150 Given the Julian Date 2450,713, or 21 September
1997, substract the Islâmic Benchmark number,
04 1417 14 4961 24* 8504 2450,713 - 1948,085 = 502,628.
05* 1771 15 5315 25 8859
This number must be divided by 10631 with
06 2126 16* 5669 26* 9213 Quotient and Remainder noted. The Quotient is 47
and the Remainder 2971. The year table is then
07* 2480 17 5315 27 9568 examined for a day number smaller than the
08 2835 18* 6378 28 9922 Remainder, 2971.

09 3189 19 6733 29* 10276 In this case, day number 2835, with year 8, is
smaller than 2971. The Quotient of the previous
30 10631
division, 47, is then multiplied by 30 and added to
* = leap years the year number (8), 47 x 30 = 1410, 1410 + 8 =
1418. This is the Year of the Annô Hegirae era
corresponding to our Julian Day 2450,713.

Then day number 2835 is subtracted from the Remainder of the previous division (2971),
yielding 136. The Month table is then examined for a number smaller than 136. This turns out
to be 118, the number corresponding to the month Jumaadaa l'uulaa.

The month thus will be Jumaadaa l'uulaa, and the day of the month will just be the month's
day number (118) substracted from the previous difference (136). This yields 18. The Annô
Hegirae era date corresponding to our Julian Day 2450,713 is 18 Jumaadaa l'uulaa 1418
AH.