World Calendars
Discordian date today
The calendar of the Principia Discordia, the founding book of a satirical movement, first printed in 1963. It splits the year into five seasons, such as Chaos and Bureaucracy, with a five-day week.
The Aftermath 23, 3192 YOLD
Setting Orange
- In the Gregorian calendar
- Wednesday 11 November 2026
- This day began
- At midnight, as Wednesday 11 November 2026 begins
- This day ends
- At midnight, as Thursday 12 November 2026 begins
- Year 2026 began
- Thursday 1 January 2026
- Next new year
- Friday 1 January 2027 (in 51 days)
- This year has
- 365 days
- Year 1 began
- 1166 BC
- How it works
- Five seasons of 73 days and a five-day week
- Years count from
- 1166 BC, so 2026 is year 3192
- New year
- Always on Sweetmorn, the first day of the week
- Unusual detail
- The leap day, St. Tib's Day, belongs to no week at all
Next holidays in this calendar
51 days
1 January 2027 ยท Gregorian, Japanese era, Thai solar (Buddhist era), Republic of China (Minguo), Juche, Holocene (Human Era), Discordian, Revised Julian, Soviet work week
How the Discordian calendar works
The year is the Gregorian year split differently. It has five seasons of 73 days each, and a week of five days: Sweetmorn, Boomtime, Pungenday, Prickle-Prickle and Setting Orange, named after the elements Sweet, Boom, Pungent, Prickle and Orange. That makes 73 weeks a year, and every year begins on a Sweetmorn.
| No. | Season | Days | Gregorian dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chaos | 73 | 1 January - 14 March |
| 2 | Discord | 73 | 15 March - 26 May |
| 3 | Confusion | 73 | 27 May - 7 August |
| 4 | Bureaucracy | 73 | 8 August - 19 October |
| 5 | The Aftermath | 73 | 20 October - 31 December |
Every fourth year, St. Tib's Day is inserted between Chaos 59 and Chaos 60, on the Gregorian 29 February. It belongs to no week, so the five-day cycle carries on afterwards as if it were not there.
Each season has two holydays. The fifth day honours an apostle: Mungday (Chaos 5), Mojoday (Discord 5), Syaday (Confusion 5), Zaraday (Bureaucracy 5) and Maladay (The Aftermath 5). The 50th day is the season's own holyday: Chaoflux, Discoflux, Confuflux, Bureflux and Afflux.
Variants and the method used here
The year is counted YOLD, the Year of Our Lady of Discord, with 1 YOLD in 1166 BC, the year of the Curse of Greyface in the Principia. The Discordian year is the Gregorian year plus 1166, so AD 2026 is 3192 YOLD. The abbreviation YOLD itself does not appear in the book; the full phrase appears once.
This site follows the Gregorian leap years, so St. Tib's Day falls on every 29 February. Some Discordians hold that the calendar follows the Julian leap rule instead; on that reading the two would first part in 3266 YOLD (AD 2100).
A short history
The calendar is set out on page 00034 of the Principia Discordia, written by Greg Hill as Malaclypse the Younger with Kerry Thornley and others. The first edition was printed in 1963, and a second edition of five copies in 1965. The best-known edition, the fourth, was published in San Francisco in March 1970.
The Unix program ddate prints the date in the Discordian calendar. It shipped with util-linux, and so with nearly all Linux distributions, from at least 1994. A maintainer disabled it by default in August 2011, and it was removed in October 2012; Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD and Gentoo now package it separately.
Sources
How this site calculates the date: From the Principia Discordia (1960s): five seasons of 73 days, a five-day week, years of Our Lady of Discord (YOLD).