Having its own ancient calendar and clock that it still uses, Ethiopia celebrates it's new year every year on the 11th September and every 4 year on the twelfth of September because of leap year. Ethiopia have celebrate it's millennium on the twelfth, September 2007, 7 years after the rest of the world. Let’s see why:



The calendars of the whole world are based on the work of the old Egyptian astronomers who discovered - as early as 3 to 4 thousand years BC - that the solar or sidereal year lasted somewhat less than 365 ¼ days. Nevertheless, it was left to the astronomers of the Alexandrian school to include this knowledge into a calendar; and it was these astronomers who also came up with the idea of leap years.

The Romans under Julius Caesar borrowed their reformed calendar from the Alexandrian science and adopted it to the western world. Then after the Copts inherited this science as a right and built upon it themselves. Eventually, the Copts handed this calendar, together with their method of computing the date of Easter, on to their descendant Church in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian year thus has something in common with the western year, having been derived from the same source.

The Ethiopian calendar retains the old Egyptian system whereby the year was divided into twelve months of 30 days each plus one additional month of 5 days and (6 days in leap years). Ethiopian dates hence, fall 7- 8 years behind western dates and have done so since early Christian times. This difference results from differences between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Churches to the date of the creation of the world.

Each Ethiopian year is dedicated to one of the 4 Evangelists according to the cycle: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The year of St. Luke is Leap Year, and thus always has 6 days in the thirteenth month of the Ethiopian calendar.

There were times when Ethiopia's fame reached its high point on several occasions; times when Ethiopia inspired the world as one of the pioneers of early civilization, not to mention its reputation as the cradle of mankind.

Come to the heart of Africa, Addis Ababa, when we celebrates this African Millennium, and witness an ancient African civilization, history, and culture.