A book or table with a calendar of days, weeks and months to which astronomical or other details is attached. Its use dates at least back to the Greeks of Alexandria. The fasti - days on which business could be transacted was the Roman almanac.
The oldest record we have is that of Solomon Jarchus, in 1150 A.D. From 1450-6, Purbach wrote one. In 1475, his pupil Regiomontanus wrote the first written almanac. Nostradamus was the most excellent almanac-maker of the Middle Ages.
Before the year 1828, all English almanacs were prophetic; and until 1834, the postage duty was 1s.3d. Per photocopy. William Pierce published the first almanac in the U.S. in 1639. The Bad Richard's Almanac (1732-57) published by Benjamin Franklin overshadowed it in success.
Released since 1868, Watkins Almanac has an annual circulation of upwards of two million copies. Raphael's, first published in 1820, and Zadkiel's, first published in 1830, are the chief Astrological Almanacs of the present period. An Ephemeris and a Nautical almanac are now published by both governments.
