The Return of the 2023 Calendar
Some years work better than others
Happy New Year! This is the third installment of a Retrofit tradition: Professor Mikey unveils what old calendars can be recycled for the coming year.
Most people don’t collect calendars. I wish I didn’t. Most people toss their old calendar at the end of the year, as if it were a carton of milk with a 12-month expiration date. But if I did that I would be missing out on Planet Stories from 2017! Cat Calendar 1978! Basquiat 2006!
Not fade away! They can all enjoy another year of relevance in 2023!
The calendar pattern that we will experience in 2023 last appeared six years ago in 2017. Even though it doesn’t happen every 6 years. In fact we won’t see it again for 11 years, in 2034. Most of the time, what we are calling the 2023 pattern repeats twice every eleven years, and once every six. Like this:
11-11-6-11-11-6
Just 106 years share the calendar format of the year 2023 in the one thousand year time span from 1500 to 2499. Twice in a thousand years, the pattern takes a 12-year break rather that one of the traditional elevens. It happened 214 years ago in 1809 (happy birthday Lincoln, Poe, and Darwin!), after it had come up in 1797. The second time comes in 186 years, when it shows up in 2209, a dozen years after 2197. The reason those two abnormalities happen have to do with leap years.
We know a few things about 2023 already, already it’s the surprises and unexpected events that will make history.
From March 20 through March 29, 2203, we will experience eleven straight days of palindromic dates. Dates that read the same backward and forward. Truly astounding.
Illustrated calendars weren’t much of a thing before the 19th century. Barely into the 21st, print calendars on the wall have disappeared in favor of the ones that we carry around on our phones.
Calendars that help us champion popular culture have morphed from farm equipment to automobiles to pinup girls and to where we are now. Everything Everywhere All at Once. Total love for things that have passed because the good old days, back in the day, back in the Old School, things were so cool!
Displaying calendars that mirror past times is big fun. Beyond being Retro as hell, it’s always enlightening to see how art styles and layout choices have changed. As far as reusing previous calendars in 2023, here come the nine most recent times the pattern has appeared.
In 2023, you can use calendars from:
This would probably be a good place to punt with some sort of “no one knows what the new year will bring” type literary maneuver, but that’s not really true. For instance, thanks to Wiki we know that…
January 1 Croatia will adopt the euro and become the 20th member state of the eurozone.This will be the first enlargement of the monetary union since Lithuania's entry in 2015.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be sworn in as the next President of Brazil after defeating incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro in a runoff election that was held in Brazil on October 30, 2022.
Uzbekistan's Latin alphabet transition will be complete.
January 8 – China to end quarantine for international travelers after three years of zero-COVID policies.
January 12 – January 22 – 2023 Winter World University Games in Lake Placid, New York, United States.
January 13 – January 14 – 2023 Czech presidential election.
February 25 – 2023 Nigerian general election.
March 5 – 2023 Estonian parliamentary election.
April — Voyager 2 is predicted to overtake Pioneer 10 as the second farthest spacecraft from Earth.
April 2 – 2023 Finnish parliamentary election.
April 30 – 2023 Paraguayan general election.
May 5 – A penumbral lunar eclipse will be visible in the evening and the following morning in Africa, Asia and Australia, and will be the 24th lunar eclipse of Lunar Saros 141.
May 6 – Coronation of Charles III and Camilla as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms in Westminster Abbey, London.
May 7 – 2023 Thai general election.
May 12 – May 28 – 2023 IIHF World Championship in Finland and Latvia.
May 9 – May 13 - Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in Liverpool, United Kingdom.
May 20 – June 11 – 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Indonesia.
June 18 – 2023 Turkish general election.
June 23 – July 2 – 2023 European Games in Kraków and Małopolska, Poland.
June 25 – 2023 Guatemalan general election.
July 20 – August 20 – 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
July 23 – 2023 Cambodian general election.
July 28 – August 6 – 2023 Netball World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa.
August – Africa Super League.
August 25 – September 10 – 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup in the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia.[6]
September 8 – October 28 – 2023 Rugby World Cup in France
September 23 – October 8 – 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
September 24 – OSIRIS-REx is expected to return with samples from the Asteroid Bennu of the Apollo group.
October – November 26 – 2023 Cricket World Cup in India.
October 8 – Next Luxembourg general election in Luxembourg.
October 14 – An annular solar eclipse will be visible in the Western U.S., Central America, Colombia and Brazil, and will be the 44th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 134.
October 20 – November 5 – 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
October 28 – A partial lunar eclipse will be visible in the evening and the next morning over Europe and most of Africa and Asia, and will be the 11th lunar eclipse of Lunar Saros 146.[10]
November 11 – 2023 Polish parliamentary election for the Parliament of Poland.
December 15 – 2023 Spanish general election for the Cortes Generales.
2023 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar 2023 MMXXIII
Ab urbe condita 2776
Armenian calendar 1472 ԹՎ ՌՆՀԲ
Assyrian calendar 6773
Baháʼí calendar 179–180
Balinese saka calendar 1944–1945
Bengali calendar 1430
Berber calendar 2973
Buddhist calendar 2567
Burmese calendar 1385
Byzantine calendar 7531–7532
Chinese calendar 壬寅年 (Water Tiger) 4719 or 4659 to
癸卯年 (Water Rabbit) 4720 or 4660
Coptic calendar 1739–1740
Discordian calendar 3189
Ethiopian calendar 2015–2016
Hebrew calendar 5783–5784
Hindu calendars - Vikram Samvatc 2079–2080, Shaka Samvat 1944–1945, Kali Yuga 5123–5124
Holocene calendar 12023
Igbo calendar 1023–1024
Iranian calendar 1401–1402
Islamic calendar1444–1445
Japanese calendar Reiwa 5 (令和５年)
Javanese calendar 1956–1957
Juche calendar 112
Julian calendar Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar 4356
Minguo calendar ROC 112 民國112年
Nanakshahi calendar 555
Thai solar calendar 2566
Tibetan calendar 阳水虎年 (male Water-Tiger)2149 or 1768 or 996 to 阴水兔年 (female Water-Rabbit) 2150 or 1769 or 997
Unix time 1672531200 – 1704067199
