Gregorian calendar It also specifies its epact relative to 1 January, in contrast with the Julian calendar, which specified it relative to 22 March. The old date was derived from the Greek system: the earlier "Supputatio Romana" specified it relative to 1 January. During the period between 1582, when the first countries adopted the Gregorian calendar, and 1923, when the last European country adopted it, it was often necessary to indicate the date of some event in both the Julian calendar and in the Gregorian calendar, for example, "10/21 February 1750/51", where the dual year accounts for some countries already beginning their
Adoption of the Gregorian calendar the old style calendars were similar but not all the same. The Arabic numerals may be used for both calendar dates in modern Japanese and Korean languages, but not for Chinese old-style dates. Japan started using the Gregorian calendar on 1 January 1873, locally known as . The preceding day, 31 December 1872, was . Japan currently uses two eras: the western era and a modified traditional Japanese era name (nengō). The months and days are those of the Gregorian calendar, but the year is either the western year number or a year of the nengō of the emperor on