Year 2026 and a few key anniversaries

Another year on the Gregorian calendar, the globally accepted civil calendar, began two days ago on Thursday. People around the world enthusiastically welcomed 2026. Celebrating the night of December 31 to say goodbye to the old year and greet January 1 is mainly a Western tradition. Over the decades, however, this tradition has become global and is now celebrated by all according to their means. Though Mother Nature does not care how humans mark the passing of a year, it happens every year and will continue in the future.

The year 2026 marks 444 years since the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, a revision of the Julian calendar. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced changes to the Julian calendar, creating what became known as the Gregorian calendar. It became the institutional calendar of the Catholic church and the most widely used calendar in the world. Roman Emperor Julius Caesar introduced the solar-based calendar in 45 BC, reforming the Roman lunisolar calendar. The Julian calendar is still used by parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodoxy as a religious calendar. Both the Gregorian and Julian calendars count a solar year as 365 days and add an extra day in a leap year. However, the Gregorian method is more accurate in counting solar days. Like the Julian calendar, it considers a year divisible by four a leap year, but not a year divisible by 100 unless it is also divisible by 400. The Julian method counts a leap year every four years without exception.

Like the previous years, 2026 brings significant historical anniversaries. For example, it is the United States Semiquincentennial, also called the Bisesquicentennial, Sestercentennial, America250, or Quarter Millennium. On July 4, 2026, people in the US will observe the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The year also marks 25 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The year will also see key scientific and technological milestones. Exactly 150 years ago, on March 10, 1876, American inventor Alexander Graham Bell made the first phone call. Fifty years ago, on January 21, 1976, the first commercial supersonic flight took place as Concorde flew from London Heathrow to Bahrain. The list is a long one. Countries and regions will observe various anniversaries related to their history and culture.

For Bangladesh, some anniversaries are significant to remember and observe. One hundred twenty years ago in Dhaka, the All-India Muslim League (AIML) was established as a political party in British India to advance the interests of Muslims in the sub-continent. The All India Muhammadan Educational Conference was held in Dhaka, leading to the foundation of the party on December 30, 1906, at Ahsan Manzil, the palace of the Dhaka Nawab Family. Two decades earlier, in 1886, Syed Ahmed Khan founded the Muhammedan Educational Congress in Aligarh, later renamed the Muhammadan Educational Conference. The birth of the Muslim League was a major step towards independence from British colonial rule and the emergence of Pakistan as an independent state. The territory that today comprises Bangladesh became East Pakistan in 1947.

Eighty years ago, the great Kolkata killing took place. The Muslim League called for Direct Action Day on August 16, 1946, seeking a separate homeland for the Indian Muslims. The day was marked by communal violence and terror. At least 10,000 people, both Hindus and Muslims, were killed, and many more were injured. Arson attacks on houses and properties, along with plundering, made the situation worse. As a chain reaction, massacres in Noakhali and Tipperah districts followed in October 1946. One year after the massive riot, India and Pakistan emerged as two independent nations.

The first constitution of Pakistan was adopted in 1956, and in September of that year, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy became Prime Minister of Pakistan. A decade later, on January 10, 1966, Pakistan and India signed the Tashkent Declaration to resolve the 1965 Indo-Pak War. In the same year, on March 23, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, then the general secretary of the East Pakistan Awami League, announced the Six-Point Programme. The Six Point Programme was quite instrumental in the struggle for freedom and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country in 1971.

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