Proleptic Gregorian calendar


The proleptic Gregorian calendar is produced by extending the Gregorian calendar backward to dates preceding its official introduction in 1582. In countries that adopted the Gregorian calendar later, dates occurring in the interim are sometimes "Gregorianized" as well. For example, George Washington was born on February 11, 1731, as Great Britain and its possessions were using the Julian calendar with English years starting on March 25 until September 1752. After the switch, that day became February 22, 1732, which is the date commonly given as Washington's birthday.

Usage

The Gregorian calendar is explicitly required for all dates before 1582 by ISO 8601:2004 if the partners to information exchange agree. It is also used by most Maya scholars, especially when converting Long Count dates.
The best practice for historians quoting contemporary documents is to give the date as in the original and to add as a note any contextual clues, conclusions about the calendar used and equivalents in other calendrical systems. This gives others the opportunity to re-evaluate the evidence.
For these calendars one can distinguish two systems of numbering years BC. Bede and later historians did not use the Latin zero, nulla, as a year, so the year preceding AD 1 is 1 BC. In this system the year 1 BC is a leap year. Mathematically, it is more convenient to include a year 0 and represent earlier years as negative, for the specific purpose of facilitating the calculation of the number of years between a negative year and a positive year. This is the convention used in astronomical year numbering and in the international standard date system, ISO 8601. In these systems, the year 0 is a leap year.
Although the nominal Julian calendar began in 45 BC, leap years between 45 BC and 1 BC were irregular. Thus the Julian calendar with quadrennial leap years was only used from the end of AD 4 until 1582 or later.
The proleptic Gregorian calendar is sometimes used in computer software to simplify the handling of older dates. For example, it is the calendar used by PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, PHP, CIM, Delphi and Python.

Difference between Julian and proleptic Gregorian calendar dates

Before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, the differences between Julian and proleptic Gregorian calendar dates are as follows:
The table below assumes a Julian leap day of 29 February, but the Julian leap day was ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martias in Latin or 24 February, so dates between 24 and 29 February in all leap years were irregular.
Note: When converting a date in a year which is leap in one calendar but not the other, include 29 February in the calculation when the conversion crosses the border between February and March.
Julian rangeProleptic Gregorian rangeGregorian ahead by:
From 3 March AD 4

to 1 March 100		From 1 March AD 4
to 28 February 100		−2 days
From 2 March 100
to 29 February 200		From 1 March 100
to 28 February 200		−1 day
From 1 March 200
to 28 February 300		From 1 March 200
to 28 February 300		0 days
From 29 February 300
to 27 February 500		From 1 March 300
to 28 February 500		1 day
From 28 February 500
to 26 February 600		From 1 March 500
to 28 February 600		2 days
From 27 February 600
to 25 February 700		From 1 March 600
to 28 February 700		3 days
From 26 February 700
to 24 February 900		From 1 March 700
to 28 February 900		4 days
From 25 February 900
to 23 February 1000		From 1 March 900
to 28 February 1000		5 days
From 24 February 1000
to 22 February 1100		From 1 March 1000
to 28 February 1100		6 days
From 23 February 1100
to 21 February 1300		From 1 March 1100
to 28 February 1300		7 days
From 22 February 1300
to 20 February 1400		From 1 March 1300
to 28 February 1400		8 days
From 21 February 1400
to 19 February 1500		From 1 March 1400
to 28 February 1500		9 days
From 20 February 1500
to 4 October 1582		From 1 March 1500
to 14 October 1582		10 days