Easter Facts: Early Easter

Just received this in an email today and thought it was very interesting about the dating of Easter etc.


Easter this year is: Sunday March 23, 2008

As you may know, Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20).

This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.

I found out a couple of things you might be interested in. Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier than it occurs this year (March 22) but that is pretty rare.

This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives, and only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old and above).

None of us have ever, or will ever, see Easter come as early as March 22.

Here are the facts:

The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so, if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones who were around for that!).

The next time Easter will fall on March 22 will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818, so no one alive today has, or ever will, see it any earlier than this year!