How do perpetual calendars work?
The Perpetual Calendar has 14 one-year calendars, one for each common year (year that does not have a February 29) that starts on each day of the week, and one for each leap year that starts on each day of the week. For the Gregorian calendar, a perpetual calendar often consists of 14 one-year calendars, plus a table to show which one-year calendar is to be used for any given year. Note that such a perpetual calendar fails to indicate the dates of moveable feasts such as Easter. The following is a formula for calculating the day of the week given the date: The formula uses the fact that each year begins one day later than the previous except for leap years. The days in a leap year begin 2 days later except for January and February where it is one day later. Since the year values increase by one we can create a sequence by adding the year to the year divided by 4 dropping the fraction. This sequence increases by 1 every year except every 4 years where it increases by 2. This sequence wi