Mesoamerican architecture there is no evidence that this phenomenon was the result of a purposeful design intended to commemorate the equinoxes. Much Mesoamerican architecture is also aligned to roughly 15° east of north. Vincent H Malmstrom has argued that this is because of a general wish to align the pyramids to face the sunset on August 13, which was the beginning date of the Maya Long Count calendar. However, recent research has shown that the earliest orientations marking sunsets on August 13 (and April 30) occur outside of the Maya area. Their purpose must have been to record the dates separated by
Adoption of the Gregorian calendar calendar) and Myanmar (Burmese calendar), and other countries use a modified version of the Gregorian calendar, including Thailand (Thai solar calendar), Japan (Japanese calendar), North Korea (North Korean calendar) and Taiwan (Minguo calendar). While many religious organizations reckon their liturgical year by the Gregorian civil calendar, others have retained their own calendars. Alternative calendars are used in many regions of the world today to mark cycles of religious and astrological events. Use of different calendars had potential to cause confusion between contemporaries. For example, it is related that one of the contributory factors for Napoleon's victory at the Battle of