If you’re celebrating New Year’s Eve on “December 31st”, you’re doing that because of one emperor, one much-younger queen, and a pope who revised those lovers’ work. That’s right: three dead people are why billions of us hoist champagne at a specific annual minute. Isn’t it strange how much of the world runs on that schedule? Isn’t it odd how we accept a life of obtuse month lengths and confusing leap days? And did you know the WEIRD CALENDARS RABBIT HOLE goes so much deeper than that? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt rings in “the new year” with comedians/podcasters Billy Wayne Davis and Danielle Radford. It's a special double-topic show, beginning with the strange history and complex present day of the “normal” calendar. Then they’ll explore the most obscure, bizarre, and theoretical calendars from world history, many of them invented to fix that pope-y dating system you might've planned a party around. Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/6-brain-stretching-calendar-systems-you-never-knew-existed/