A First Draft of History: Week of Feb. 20-27

here are a few important events from this week in history:

1582 - Pope Gregory XIII issued a papal bull outlining his calendar reforms, thus establishing the Gregorian Calendar, which is the calendar still in general use today.

Prior to Gregory’s reforms, the Julian calendar was the calendar in use across Europe. This calendar was a reform of the Roman calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. The calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months. A leap day is added to February every four years. The Julian year is, therefore, on average 365.25 days long.

The Julian calendar year was intended to approximate the tropical (solar) year. Although astronomers had long known that the tropical year was a few minutes shorter than 365.25 days, the calendar did not compensate for this difference. As a result, the calendar year gained about three days every four centuries compared to observed equinox times and the seasons. This discrepancy was corrected by the Gregorian reform.

The impetus for the Gregorian calendar came from a perceived need to reform the method of calculating dates of Easter. Under the Julian calendar the dating of Easter had become standardized, using March 21 as the date of the equinox (its supposed date at the time of the Council of Nicea, in the year 325). But by the thirteenth century it was realized that the true equinox had regressed from March 21 to a date earlier in the month. As a result, Easter was drifting away from its springtime position and was losing its relation with the Jewish Passover. Over the next four centuries, scholars debated the "correct" time for celebrating Easter and the means of regulating this time calendrically. The Church made intermittent attempts to solve the Easter question, without reaching a consensus.

By the sixteenth century the equinox had shifted by ten days, and astronomical New Moons were occurring four days before ecclesiastical New Moons. At the behest of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius V introduced a new Breviary in 1568 and Missal in 1570, both of which included adjustments to the lunar tables and the leap-year system. Pope Gregory XIII, who succeeded Pope Pius in 1572, soon convened a commission to consider reform of the calendar, since he considered his predecessor's measures inadequate.

The recommendations of Pope Gregory's calendar commission were instituted by the papal bull "Inter Gravissimus," signed on February 24, 1582. Ten days were deleted from the calendar, so that October 4, 1582 was followed by October 15, 1582 thereby causing the vernal equinox of 1583 and subsequent years to occur about March 21. And a new table of New Moons and Full Moons was introduced for determining the date of Easter.

The new calendar was promulgated through the Roman Catholic world as quickly as possible, given logistical and political complications. Protestant states initially rejected the calendar, but gradually accepted it over the coming centuries, thus implicitly recognizing the authority of the Holy See and the supremacy of the One True Church. The Eastern Orthodox churches rejected the new calendar and continued to use the Julian calendar with traditional lunar tables for calculating Easter. Well, that’s the Orthodox for you. Because the purpose of the Gregorian calendar was to regulate the cycle of Christian holidays, its acceptance in the non-Christian world was initially not at issue. But as international communications developed, the civil rules of the Gregorian calendar were gradually adopted around the world, a process that spanned more than three centuries. The legal code of the United States does not specify an official national calendar. Use of the Gregorian calendar in the United States stems from an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1751, which specified use of the Gregorian calendar in England and its colonies.

1819 - Spain ceded Florida to the United States. The Spanish explorer and adventurer Juan Ponce de León was the first European to land in Florida, arriving there in 1513. Sometime between April 2 and April 8, Ponce de León waded ashore on the northeast coast, possibly near present-day St. Augustine. He called the area la Florida, in honor of Pascua florida ("feast of the flowers"), Spain's Eastertime celebration. After a few more expeditions to the territory, Spanish colonization began in earnest in 1565. In that year, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, responding in part to fears that the French had designs on Florida, established the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States at St. Augustine. Given a lack of resources and the presence of English colonies to the north, Spain’s hold on Florida was always tenuous. Britain gained control of Florida in 1763 in exchange for Havana, Cuba, which the British had captured from Spain during the Seven Years' War. Spain evacuated Florida after the exchange, leaving the province virtually empty. At that time, St. Augustine was still a garrison community with fewer than five hundred houses. The only other settlement of note was Pensacola, also a small military town.

The British split Florida into two parts: East Florida, with its capital at St. Augustine; and West Florida, with its seat at Pensacola.  The two Floridas remained loyal to Great Britain throughout the American Revolution. However, Spain participated indirectly in the war as an ally of France and the patriots and captured Pensacola from the British in 1781. In 1784 Spain regained control of the rest of Florida as part of the peace treaty that ended the American Revolution.

When the British evacuated Florida, Spanish colonists as well as settlers from the newly formed United States came pouring in. Many of the new residents were lured by favorable Spanish terms for acquiring property, called land grants. Others who came were escaped slaves, trying to reach a place where their U.S. masters had no authority. Instead of becoming more Spanish, the two Floridas increasingly became more "American." Finally, after several official and unofficial U.S. military expeditions into the territory, Spain formally ceded Florida to the United States in 1819, according to terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty, a document that resolved several long-standing border disputes. Every once in awhile Americans regret the annexation of Florida – like during the 2000 presidential election – but overall we’re glad to have it. After all, it would stink to have to get a passport just to go to Disney World.

1932 - Country music legend Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland, Ark. He was the fourth of seven children born to a poor, farming family. The family faced plenty of adversity as Cash was growing up – their family farm flooded at least twice, they endured the Great Depression, and worst of all, Cash’s older brother Jack, whom he adored, was killed at the age of 15 in a horrific accident. Cash began singing at a young age. At 18, he enlisted in the Air Force and was sent to Germany, where he formed his first band. An interesting piece of trivia about Cash – in Germany he served as a radio operator intercepting signals from the Soviet Union. In that capacity he was, according to some reports, the first American to learn of Joseph Stalin’s death. There were lots of highs and lows for Cash from that point on, but by the end of it all he would be one of the most famous and beloved popular musicians in American history.

2011 - A magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 184 people. That was one of the first major stories I discussed on this show, and indeed it garnered a great deal of attention around the world, although it would soon be overshadowed by the far-more-destructive earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

International News:

Protests erupted in Afghanistan this week after reports surfaced that NATO soldiers had burned copies of the Qur’an at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul. Apparently the soldiers thought the situation in Afghanistan somehow isn’t challenging enough and so decided to do the one thing sure to provoke the populace. You would think that “don’t burn the Qur’an” would be the first instruction the military would give to soldiers in Afghanistan, but I guess not. NATO is still investigating what led to the decision to burn Korans and other religious texts. Early reports said that the books had messages written in them from detained Taliban suspects. Most of the Qur’ans that were rescued from the flames are still at Bagram Air Base in a locked container, kept as evidence.

Afghans reacted to the news the way people across the Muslim world react when their faith is besmirched in any way – they rioted and started killing whoever they could get their hands on. Riots have raged for at least five days, with dozens of people dead as a result.

On Saturday, protestors stormed offices of the Afghan government and the United Nations, leading to violent standoffs.  Officials said that four protesters were shot by the Afghan police after a crowd of thousands attacked the United Nations headquarters in Kunduz Province in the north, wrecking public buildings and stores. Those shootings left 51 others wounded, hospital officials said. In the east, 2,000 protesters, mainly students from one of the main high schools, marched on the governor’s residence in Laghman Province, and 21 Afghans were wounded when the police opened fire. In many of these riots, there have been reports that the crowds were reportedly stirred by provocateurs. Indeed, these events bring to mind the protests over the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad several years ago; protests which appeared to be spontaneous but which were in many cases carefully orchestrated and choreographed by political or religious groups seeking to gain advantage.

In response to the Qur’an burning, President Obama resorted to his default foreign policy position – he issued an apology, this time to Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Republican presidential hopefully Newt Gingrich condemned the apology, and indeed it does seem strange that the US feels compelled to apologize to a brutal, corrupt, heroin-trafficking warlord who is only in office, who is only still alive, because of US support. But, such is the state of US foreign policy. 

Not surprisingly, Obama’s apology has had little effect. This Qur’an-burning incident has deepened fissures between the US and our Afghan “frenemies” and led to two horrible assaults on US soldiers by supposed Afghan allies.

On Thursday, two American soldiers were shot to death by a member of the Afghan Army at a base in eastern Afghanistan during protests about the Qur’an burning.

One of those soldiers, Cpl. T.J. Conrad of Roanoke, Va., had talked with relatives about the backlash over the burning of Qur’ans at a U.S. military base shortly before he died. Conrad had deployed to Afghanistan just last month. He was 22 years old and left behind a wife and a 7-month-old baby.

Adding to the bloodshed, on Saturday, two American officers were shot dead inside one of the most tightly secured sections of the Interior Ministry building in Kabul.

Yesterday, the Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement that it had identified a suspect who had fled and was believed to be an employee of one of the departments of the Interior Ministry. The Taliban confirmed this statement and claimed that the man had acted on their behalf. 

President Hamid Karzai called for calm during a televised news conference Sunday from the presidential palace.

NATO responded to the attack by immediately pulling all its advisers out of Afghan ministries in Kabul. This decision called into question the coalition’s entire strategy of joint operations with Afghan forces across the country. In addition to the withdrawal from Afghan ministries, NATO forces around the country had been told in recent days to keep their distance from their Afghan counterparts on shared bases out of concern that there could be more attacks on them by Afghan soldiers.

Again, all this is casting doubt on a central plank of the Obama administration’s strategy to end the United States’ involvement in the war: a close working relationship between Afghan forces and advisers and trainers who are trying to make the Afghans ready to defend and police the country on their own. After all, how can US soldiers and diplomats cooperate with the Afghans, how can they train them, if they have to worry that the Afghans might turn on them at any moment?

This latest tension will also complicate a number of big decisions that have to be made in the near future, including the fate of the main American prison in Afghanistan, the detention facility in Parwan, which President Hamid Karzai wants handed to Afghan control in less than a month; how to proceed with stalled negotiations over the Strategic Partnership Document that is intended to map out relations between the United States and Afghanistan after 2014; and how large a pullout President Obama will announce at a NATO meeting planned for May in Chicago.

And turning from Afghanistan to another source of endless bad news, in Syria at least 31 civilians and soldiers were killed yesterday in bloodshed that coincided with a vote on a new constitution that could keep President Bashar al-Assad in power until 2028.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a military bombardment of opposition districts in Homs, now in its fourth week, had killed nine civilians, while rebel fighters had killed four soldiers in clashes in the city.

The British-based Observatory said eight civilians and 10 members of the security forces were killed in violence elsewhere in Syria, scene of what has become an increasingly militarized revolt against four decades of Assad family rule.

Voting was under way in the referendum on a constitution which Assad says will lead to a multi-party parliamentary election in three months, but which his opponents see as a sick joke given the unrest convulsing the country.

On Saturday security forces killed at least 100 people across Syria, including six women and 10 children, the opposition Syrian Network for Human Rights said. The Syrian government, backed by Russia, China and Iran, and undeterred by Western and Arab pressure to halt the carnage, says it is fighting foreign-backed "armed terrorist groups."

The outside world has been powerless to restrain Assad's drive to crush the 11-month-old revolt, which has the potential to slide into a sectarian conflict between Syria's Sunni Muslim majority and the president's minority Alawite sect.

The military onslaught on parts of Homs has created harrowing conditions for civilians, rebels and journalists; in fact, two prominent western journalists were killed in the city this week. Despite the violence in provincial cities across Syria, voting on the constitution went ahead in calmer areas.

If approved, it would drop an article making Assad's Baath party the leader of state and society, allow political pluralism and enact a presidential limit of two seven-year terms.

But the limit will not be enforced retrospectively, meaning that Assad, already in power for 11 years, could serve another two terms after his current one expires in 2014.

Anti-Assad activists have called for a boycott of a vote they see as meaningless. They said they would try to hold protests near polling stations in Damascus and suburbs where troops drove out insurgents last month.

This is Syria's third referendum since Assad inherited power from his late father. The first installed him as president in 2000 with an official 97.29 percent 'yes' vote. The second renewed his term seven years later with 97.62 percent in favor. Wow, 97%! He must be really popular!

State News:

And speaking of elections, here’s an interesting piece of state news this week. It looks like North Carolinians will have more options in next year’s presidential election beyond the usual slate of Republican, Libertarian, and Democratic candidates. A group that plans to mount a novel third-party presidential campaign is poised to get on the North Carolina ballot, a move that could change the electoral dynamics in this key battleground state.

A state elections official says the organization, called Americans Elect, appears to have the required signatures to get on the November ballot. The state could certify them in early March.

Americans Elect bills itself as "the first nonpartisan presidential nomination." It's an online effort that expects to have hundreds of thousands of people take part in choosing a candidate in a process that culminates in a virtual convention this June. According to its website, the nonprofit group hopes to "help break gridlock and change politics as usual" with a candidate who "will put their country before their party, and American interests before special interests."

Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is on its board. Advisers include Charlotte investor Mark Erwin, a former U.S. ambassador, former FBI Director William Webster, and Mark McKinnon, a former adviser to President George W. Bush.

Brian Findlay, the group's policy director, says Americans Elect is on the ballot in 16 states including California. The group has submitted required signatures in 11 more, including North Carolina. Findlay expects the candidate to be on all 50 state ballots and the District of Columbia.

So, Americans Elect is all ready to go except for one minor problem…it still needs a candidate.

Since people began "drafting" candidates at the end of January, hundreds have been recommended. The list includes some unconventional candidates from business and education, but the leading contender so far is GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, a Texas congressman, followed by former Utah governor and former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman and independent U.S. Sen. “Comrade” Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Paul has said he has no intention of mounting a third-party bid. It's unclear whether the others would. Findlay says Paul or anybody else nominated at June's virtual convention would have to run on a balanced ticket. In fact, a "candidate certification committee" would have to sign off on the ticket.

Americans Elect was funded with $21 million raised from undisclosed seed donors, reported to be mostly wealthy hedge-fund executives. Elliot Ackerman, the group's chief operating officer, said in November that the goal is to give all Americans - not just those in key primary states - a voice in choosing a nominee.

Third-party candidates have had an impact in presidential politics.

In 1992, independent Ross Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote. According to some analysts, his success came at the expense of the first President Bush.

In 2000, some Democrats blame Al Gore's narrow loss in Florida on the Green Party's Ralph Nader, who siphoned crucial votes, swinging the state - and the election - to Republican George W. Bush.

An independent candidate with broad support could change the electoral math in many states. Perhaps nowhere is that more true than in North Carolina, a state Obama carried by a mere 14,000 votes in 2008. Given the dynamics of this election season though, and the fact that Obama can probably once again count on winning 99.9999% of the African-American vote – the only question is whether turn-out will be as high as in 2008 – an independent candidate is more likely to siphon votes from the GOP.

Cosmic News:

A group of astronomers announced this week that they have discovered a new type of alien planet. This type of planet is larger than Earth, and, most notably, it is very warm and a large part of its mass is made up of water.

The standard-bearer for this new class of exoplanet is called GJ 1214b, which astronomers first discovered in December 2009. New observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope suggest that GJ 1214b is a watery world enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere, kind of like Ocracoke in summer.

To date, astronomers have discovered more than 700 planets beyond our solar system, with about 2,300 more "candidates" awaiting confirmation by follow-up observations.

These alien planets are a diverse bunch. Astronomers have found one planet as light and airy as Styrofoam, for example, and another as dense as iron. They've discovered several alien worlds that orbit two suns.

But GJ 1214b, which is located 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer), is something new altogether, researchers said. This so-called "super-Earth" is about 2.7 times Earth’s diameter and weighs nearly seven times as much as our planet. It orbits a red-dwarf star at a distance of 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometres), giving it an estimated surface temperature of 446 degrees Fahrenheit too hot to host life as we know it.

Since astronomers know GJ 1241b's mass and size, they're able to calculate its density, which turns out to be just 2 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cc). Earth's density is 5.5 g/cc, while that of water is 1 g/cc.

GJ 1214b thus appears to have much more water than Earth does, and much less rock. The alien planet's interior structure is likely quite different from that of our world, and scientists speculate that the planet is also home to strange substances like “hot ice” or “superfluid water”.

GJ 1214b probably formed farther out from its star, where water ice was plentiful, and then migrated in to its current location long ago. In the process, it would have experienced more Earth-like temperatures, but how long this benign phase lasted is unknown, researchers said.

Because GJ 1214b is so close to Earth, it's a prime candidate for study by future instruments. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is slated to launch in 2018, may be able to get an even better look at the planet's atmosphere.  

Andrew Stern is, among other things, an historian, an Ocracoke resident, and a board member at Ocracoke’s community radio station, WOVV 90.1FM where you can hear his weekly broadcast of “A First Draft of History” every Monday morning at 9am.