What is a almanac

An almanac is a book published once each year to give many useful facts and to be a complete calendar for the coming year. If you have an almanac, you can know beforehand many things that will happen on each day of the year. It will tell you what time the sun will rise and when it will set, and how full the moon will be, on each day. If you live near an ocean, the almanac will tell you at what times the tide will be high and when it will be low. Some almanacs also try to predict the weather in advance, but this cannot be done scientifically so far in advance. The first almanac was probably made in ancient Egypt, thousands of years ago. The Nile River overflowed its banks every year, and the Egyptian people wanted to know about when this would happen.

The priests studied the movements of the stars and the moon. They knew that so many full moons would have to appear after one flood before the next one came. The priests then told the people when to expect the next flood. Almanacs became popular in Europe during the Middle Ages, about six or seven hundred years ago. Some almanacs gave more information than others. There were almanacs that predicted wars, the death of kings, earthquakes, and fires. Each year the people rushed to buy these almanacs.

They forgot that last year's predictions had been mostly wrong. One of the earliest and most famous American almanacs was begun in 1732 by Benjamin Franklin. He called it Poor Richard's Almanack. Poor Richard was a name that Franklin used for himself. Franklin not only gave the usual kind of almanac information; he also included many witty sayings. Surely you have heard "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." It was first written by Franklin for Poor Richard's Almanack. Farmers in America read almanacs.

Among-other things the farmers want to know when to plant and when to harvest their crop. The Old Farmers' Almanac, started in 1766, is still read by many farmers in New England. Today several almanacs are published every year by large newspapers and by book publishers. These almanacs give more than information about the coming year. They also tell what happened during past years, and list many interesting kinds of information.