ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Proleptic Julian calendar

Okay kiddo, let me try to explain it to you in a way that you can easily understand.

So, a calendar is a chart or a system that we use to keep track of days, weeks, months, and years. The most commonly used calendar in the world is called the Gregorian calendar, which has 365 days in a year, with an extra day added every four years in February (we call it a leap year).

But did you know that there are other calendars as well, and one of them is the Julian calendar? It was created by Julius Caesar and used in the Roman Empire around 45 BC.

The proleptic Julian calendar is a little bit different from the regular Julian calendar because it goes back in time before the calendar was created. Do you know what "proleptic" means? It means "anticipating or assuming the future occurrence of something."

So, basically, the proleptic Julian calendar is a way of calculating dates and events that happened before the Julian calendar came into existence. It assumes that Julius Caesar's calendar had been in place since the beginning of time, even though it wasn't actually created until much later.

For example, if we want to know what date Julius Caesar was assassinated on in 44 BC, we can use the proleptic Julian calendar to calculate it as March 15 (which is the same as the Julian calendar date).

In short, the proleptic Julian calendar is like a time-traveling tool that helps us understand dates and events from the past in a way that is consistent with our current calendar system.
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