Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes
When the necessary eleven days were added, George Washington’s birthday, which fell on February 11, 1731, Old Style, became February 22, 1732, New Style.
Boorstin, Daniel J. The Discoverers. Random House, 1983, p. 20.
In Caesar’s famous adventure in Cleopatra’s Egypt he discovered that in many ways, the Egyptian culture, physicians and scientists were far superior. Rome had become the superpower by adopting new ideas and technology wherever they found them. Caesar, living in Cleopatra’s palace in Alexandria which was then the great center of learning of the known world, worked with the Egyptian Astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria to understand the Egyptian calendar which he then adopted and ordered Rome to change in 45 BC, and has since been referred to as the “Julian calendar” which is close to what we use today. The Egyptians of Cleopatra’s era were so scientifically sophisticated that Sosigenes not only knew that the planets revolved around the sun, but had calculated the orbits of the inner planets. See {621716}.
Daniel Joseph Boorstin was an American historian at the University of Chicago who wrote on many topics in American and world history. He was appointed the twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress in 1975 and served until 1987. He was instrumental in the creation of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.
