sociologist at the oddness of moments

I'll confess, I don't know the source of this stuff. So if anyone can provide any, that'd be great.

Christmas TriviaThe word "Christmas" comes from Old English - Cristes maesse or Mass of Christ.

Birth Date of Christ - The pivot point of history, every event and year before Jesus' birth counts down to it, and every event and year after his birth counts up from it. The Gregorian calendar we use is known to be inaccurate by 4-6 years. In the 6th century (around 533AD), the monk Dionysius Exigous (means Dennis the short) was commissioned by Pope John I to set divisions. Dennis studied the records and set the divisions (BC, Before Christ & AD, Anno Domini, "the year of the Lord"), to the calendar and apparently missed the birth of Christ by a few years. To this date no one knows how he came up with this date as the year Jesus was born. {He also forgot to put in a "0" year, so it jumps from 1BC to 1AD, this makes new centuries begin on the second year, the 21st century begins on midnight of Dec. 31st, 2000, not 1999.}
Because we know according to Roman records that there was an eclipse near the time of Herod the Great's death and modern astronomy can account for one in 4BC, and we know Herod was still living at the time of his birth. According to this and Luke's account of the census, we can now fairly accurately place the birth of Christ somewhere around 7 to 6BC. But there's currently no way to place the month or day.