Adoption of the Gregorian calendar started to make the change from the Julian calendar and towards the Gregorian calendar in 1700, but it was decided to make the (then 11-day) adjustment gradually by excluding the leap days (29 February) from each of 11 successive leap years, 1700 to 1740. Meanwhile, the Swedish calendar would be out of step with both the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar for 40 years; also, the difference would not be constant but would change every four years. This system had potential for confusion when working out the dates of Swedish events in this 40-year period. To add to the
Chinese calendar (, 29 days); stem branches for the first, eleventh, and 21st days, and the date, stem branch and time of the solar terms. The traditional Chinese calendar was developed between 771 and 476 BC, during the Spring and Autumn period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. Before the Zhou dynasty, solar calendars were used. One version of the solar calendar is the five-elements calendar (), which derives from the Wu Xing. A 365-day year was divided into five phases of 73 days, with each phase corresponding to a Wu Xing element. A phase began with a governing-element day (), followed by