5. How did people of your culture/time-frame keep track of days?

The Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar (bust at right) in 45 B.C.E. Author David Duncan says the Julian calendar was born of Caesar's tryst with Cleopatra.

Before the Julian calendar was introduced, priests in the Roman Empire exploited the calendar for political ends, inserting days and even months into the calendar to keep the politicians they favored in office. Tired of the chaos that this undependable system eventually gave rise to, Julius Caesar finally set out to put the long-abused calendar back on track.

It was in common use until the late 1500s, when countries started changing to the Gregorian calendar (section the modern year). However, some countries (for example, Greece and Russia) used it into the early 1900s, and the Orthodox church in Russia still uses it, as do some other Orthodox churches.

In the Julian calendar, the tropical year is approximated as 365 1/4 days = 365.25 days. This gives an error of 1 day in approximately 128 years.

The approximation 365 1/4 is achieved by having 1 leap year every 4 years.

http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-christian.html#SECTION00310000000000000000

The calendar used throughout the world today is the Gregorian calendar. It is sometimes called a "Christian" calendar, and additional historic information about this calendar, and its precursor, the Julian calendar, are available in the history of the Cristian calendar section.

The Gregorian calendar is the one commonly used today. It was proposed by Aloysius Lilius, a physician from Naples, and adopted by Pope Gregory XIII (portrait above right) in accordance with instructions from the Council of Trent (1545-1563) to correct for errors in the older Julian Calendar. It was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in a papal bull, Inter Gravissimas, on February 24, 1582 (shown at below right). This bull is named "Inter Gravissimas" after its first two words.It was

In the Gregorian calendar, the tropical year is approximated as 365 97/400 days = 365.2425 days. Thus it takes approximately 3300 years for the tropical year to shift one day with respect to the Gregorian calendar.

The approximation 365 97/400 is achieved by having 97 leap years every 400 years.

http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/year-definitions.html