The New Student's Reference Work/Almanacs

Almanacs (al′ mā́-năks), or books in which information is given about the, the and ,  and other phenomena of , are at least as old as the fifth century after Christ, when they were in use in. They may be much older, and of. With the invention of they became common in. They generally contained predictions, the most famous of which was one that happened to be correct, in which Nostradamus foretold the death of. In the best known almanac was that of, called Poor Richard’s, and begun in 1732. Until 1828, when the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge issued a valuable English almanac, most of those which were sold were either useless for practical purposes or else full of coarse and superstitious remarks. Since that date, however, almanacs have either been published for their practical utility or else for advertisement. In the former class may be mentioned firstly the Nautical Almanac, published by the Government since 1767, which is quite necessary to navigators; secondly, the  Connaissance des Temps; thirdly, the  Astronomisches Jahrbuch; and finally the United States American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac. Very good almanacs are published yearly by some of the great American newspapers; such as the World and the Tribune; and in these may often be found the exact date of events which are remote enough to be forgotten, but too recent to be readily found in books of reference.