Humanities desk
< May 2	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	May 4 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 3[edit]

reconstruction plan after the civil war[edit]

what is it about the union? what is it about the south? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:1515:3D8:0:CA7B:3E16:AD33 (talk) 01:18, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please try reading the Wikipedia article titled Reconstruction era and come back if anything in that article needs further explanation. --Jayron 32 01:37, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Union label[edit]

Is a Union label (a.k.a. "union bug") specific to the United States, or does this exist in other countries? Our article talks only about the U.S., and provides no context on this. Asking because I want to create a parallel Commons category. - Jmabel | Talk 15:19, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It may be peculiar to the U.S.; the concept started in the early 1900s to promote American-made, Union-made merchandise. See Union Label Department, AFL–CIO which notes it was "to promote the products and services produced in America by trade union members". I can't find any information on similar labeling practices outside of the U.S. --Jayron 32 15:42, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing similar in the UK, and as far as I know, the rest of the EU. Alansplodge (talk) 18:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's use of the Gregorian calendar in biographies.[edit]

Re biography of opera composer, Claudio Monteverdi, is his birthday given in the New Style calendar, I.E., the Gregorian calendar? See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claudio_Monteverdi&oldid=837724976 prefix:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives He was born before the Gregorian calendar changes went into effect. His Wikipedia entry does not say Old Style or New Style, that I can see.66.153.170.237 (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK, we follow the general practice in the literature, which you'll find described in the Gregorian calendar#Proleptic Gregorian calendar section: "For ordinary purposes, the dates of events occurring prior to 15 October 1582 are generally shown as they appeared in the Julian calendar". In other words, we don't project the new Gregorian calendar back into a time when it didn't exist; thus, any date from before 1582 will be according to the Julian calendar. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:14, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the general practice in the literature is to use either Julian or Gregorian, whichever was in effect at the time and place of the event. Since the Gregorian calendar was adopted promptly in what is now Italy, Claudio Monteverdi's birth date would be Julian and his death date would be Gregorian. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but where there is a chance of confusion, such as this one, where the calendar changes during someone's lifetime, we should indicate O.S. or N.S., and/or use a note like the first one in Shakespeare. - Nunh-huh 20:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree entirely. (I was the initiator of that Shakespearian note, and it remains one of my finest literary achievements. I've repeated the exercise with J S Bach, G F Handel and a few others. The Nobel Prize will surely be mine soon.) Without that information, anyone working out how long the subject lived would be subtracting oranges from apples, getting it wrong by 10 days. Not an earth-shattering issue, I hear you cry. Yes, there are worse problems, but something is either accurate or it is not. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:49, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the "Like" button? - Nunh-huh 21:58, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Except, I've just heard that the 2018 Nobel Literature Prize will not be awarded. They put it down to having to reorganise the committee after various sexual harassment and financial scandals, but it's clear my post above is the real reason. The lengths these people will go to to avoid giving credit where it's due. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:37, 4 May 2018 (UTC) [reply]

Gregorian: 325 AD-obsessed, brings back 200-300 AD.. (yes I know the spirit of the Easter rules kind of encourage this) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What's that in English? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:04, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Gregorian: supposed to bring back the calendar of the when the Easter rules were set (325 AD) for as many centuries as possible, actually brings back the calendar of March 1, 200 to February 28, 300. The Easter Full Moon sometimes occurring in winter must've made the Vatican feel icky, hence instead of dropping 11 days they dropped 10 but that made the equinox occur March 20 more often than its date in the Easter rules (March 21) and also meant New and Old Style are the same in 200 to 300 AD instead of 325. Interestingly, a calendar that repeats the leap pattern of 1 thorough 33 AD forever allows the equinox to stay March 21 as long as possible only in a sliver of Earth centered on the U.S. Capitol Building which made the Virgin Queen's advisor call it God's Longitude. She colonized it. A few years later the buildings disappeared, no blood was found, the tree carving duress code wasn't found and the only trace was CROATOAN carved in a fence and C-R-O in a tree. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:59, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sagittarian Milky Way. You prompted me to read up a little bit about the Gregorian reform. I was vaguely aware that it had something to do with the date of Easter but I did not know exactly how and had always imagined the astronomical inaccuracy of the Julian calendar was the prime motivation, so I have often wondered why only 10 days (October 4 was followed by October 15) and not 12 when in fact the leap-years of 200 AD and 100 AD must also have been wrong. Assuming of course Caesar's calendar of 45 BC was astronomically accurate when it got started in the first place. And how it is that the Gregorian calendar is supposedly astronomically accurate when in the reform 2 days fewer than necessary were skipped. I read somewhere that the same kind of proposals were made (but obviously not implemented) in the Eastern Orthodox Church (which ironically is still to this day stuck with the Julian Calendar) already in the 14th or 15th century but unfortunately the WP article doesn't say anything about that as all the precursors mentioned are all from Western Europe. Basemetal 11:19, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As suggested in Christmas#Choice of December 25 date, had they really done it right, they would have (re-)settled on March 25 as the first day of spring, and December 25 as the first day of winter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:23, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Or they could have been really radical and called 25 March "1 January". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:32, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That would make sense, as a number of calendar systems regarded spring as the beginning of the year. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:52, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

March 25 was January 1, they just changed the year number then while still calling it March 25. (Lady Day) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:07, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, what the hell, right? Then again, "radical" is not a word I immediately associate with the Catholic Church. Skipping ten days in ~~December~~ October (good catch BB but I did say October above; don't know what happened; a slip of the... keys, or I was suddenly thinking of the kingdom of France, or what... but thanks) once in 1600 years is about as radical as they could get. One shudders to think what would have happened if the Julian calendar had been ahead and they had had to go back and re-run 10 days. World revolution. Basemetal 12:53, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

October, actually, but yes, adding days could have caused even more trouble. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:15, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If the year was 365.25x days instead of 365.24x they would not have added October 32 to 41, what saint would have those days so you could have a fallback/first choice baby name?, would they have to write new Masses with less theologically important Bible parts that'll never be used again?,think of the All Saints Day!. Too many February 29ths for awhile seems more likely (Sweden added more radically, they planned to convert by skipping leap years then got tired of sharing dates with even less people and went back by giving February 30 days) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:07, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I was thinking more going back to 10 days before, e.g. October 4 followed by a second iteration of September 25, so two versions each of September 25 to October 4. Now those saints would have been happy! This is all speculation anyway, so I'll let some mangaka work on such an alternative history, as they seem to like that. Basemetal 17:41, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]