The Calendar Year:

Casual fans may not know this, but the inhabitants of the Star Wars universe also keep track of the time. Because every planet has its own orbit and length of day, it was decided at some point in history to base the Galactic standard measurements on the calendar year of the capital of the Republic, Coruscant.

Coruscant (thus the standard year) has 368 days in the year, divided in 10 months of 35 days each (350). A week is 5 days long so there are 5 weeks in a month. The remaining 18 days are for 3 fete weeks and 3 more holidays. Each day has 24 hours, an hour is 60 minutes and a minute is 60 seconds. So far, the months and the weekdays have not been named (although there is evidence that there is a "Sunday" as Han Solo once mentioned he went to Sunday school.) Unfortunately, most authors do not use this system and are not encouraged by Lucasfilm as it might be a bit confusing and irrelevant to their stories. But the role-playing game supplements published between 1988 and 1998 (which also served as the main sources of information for Star Wars authors at the time) followed this formula diligently.

The Tapani Sector:

Different Sectors of the Galaxy might have adopted their own local names for days and months, like the Tapani Sector for example. In Tapani, the 10 months are named Elona, Kelona, Selona, Telona, Nelona, Helona, Melona, Yelona, Relona and Welona.

The 3 fete weeks are named:
Expansion Week (between month 3 and 4)
Shelova Week (between month 6 and 7)
Winter Fete (between month 10 and 1)

The 3 holidays are named:
Tapani Day (after month 2)
Productivity Day (after month 5)
Harvest Day (after month 8)

The 5 days of the week are named: Atunda, Katunda, Satunda, Datunda and Natunda.

What Year Is It?

Most official sources list particular dates as "BBY" and "ABY", which means "Before the Battle of Yavin" and "After the Battle of Yavin", the event of Star Wars Episode IV somehow being the "year 0". But the folks in the Star Wars Universe do not date the years based on that event. How could the people living in the Tales of the Jedi era know that they were living "4,000 years BBY"?

Over the years since the movies came out, there have been a few attempts at creating a calendar (see Dan Wallace's blog entry about different calendar systems). But the one that stuck got started as a regular feature in West End Games' Star Wars Adventure Journal (starting with issue #3 in 1994) called "Galaxywide NewsNets". Each of the news stories had a number at the top, something that looked like 35:3:5 for example. Most people never noticed this, thinking it was just a throw-away reference to some in-universe cataloguing system or such, but author Paul Sudlow was fully intending to create something like an official dating system.

According Sudlow's dating system, there is a story about the Imperial Senate being disbanded dated 35:3:5. This would mean that the events in Star Wars Episode IV take place around the 5th day of the 3rd month of year 35.

Three years later in Issue #14 of the Adventure Journal, there is story from the Imperial Holovision network titled "Fleet Smashes Rebels on Hoth" dated 38:6:9, which fits all the references to Episode V taking place 3 years after Episode IV. The Galaxywide NewsNets were a great feature of themagazine, giving us an insight into the working of the Star Wars universe, but sadly that issue would be the last one to showcase this feature as the magazine was cancelled after the following issue (#15, Nov. 1997).

Undoubtedly, Sudlow was intending "year 0" to be the foundation of the New Order by Emperor Palpatine, 35 years before Episode IV, but unfortunately he didn't have any knowledge of George Lucas' chronological placement of the events of the prequel trilogy.

The Dating System That "Stuck"

Enter genius and multi-talented Lucas Online employee Pablo Hidalgo. With the approaching release of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Pablo (and his boss Paul Ens) thought it would be cool to revive the Galaxywide NewsNets as an online feature that would showcase weekly "in-universe" news stories that lead up to the events of the film. The site opened 12 weeks before the movie, and was updated every week of real time with a new "issue number" of the Holonet News covering a week in Star Wars time.

Following "An Important Message Regarding Holonet Security", which explained that the Holonet is back online more secure than ever after a slicer attack, the first issue was Volume 531 Issue #45, dated 13:2:28. Each issue had several stories divided in sections such as "Business" and "Sports" news. The last story was dated 13:5:16 and mentioned the attack on Senator Amidala's life on Coruscant, meaning that Episode II took place in year 13. and ended with a "Republic Emergency Broadcast" message dated 13:5:23 that marked the beginning of the Clone Wars.

Check out the site at http://www.holonetnews.com/45/archives/. Note that the entire Holonet News website can be found on disc 2 of the Attack of the Clones DVD as a DVD-ROM special feature.

Year 0

Of course, being the dedicated fan that he is, Pablo chose to follow the dating system that got started in the Adventure Journal, and since Episode II took place 22 years before Episode IV, it means that it would take place in year 13 of the West End Games calendar (35 minus 22 = 13). But now that we knew the Empire wasn't formed until year 16 in Episode III, Pablo offered a solution for the "year 0" problem.

In one of the stories in the first online issue (titled "RM&S Debates Calendar Reform"), not only does offer different reasons for the varying 10-, 11-, and 12-month systems (as mentioned before, most novel authors ignored the West End Games calendar) but he also explained the foundation of year 0. It is said in the story that 13 years before, there was a Great ReSynchronization where all dating systems started up from scratch.

Further Holonet News and Episode III

Pablo then continued the Newsnets in Star Wars Insider magazine, starting with issue #65 covering the events of the Clone Wars. Each issue had a couple of stories told from both sides of the war (one page for CIS Shadowfeed, one page for Republic Holonet News) and the feature ran until issue #76, in all covering over a year in the middle of the Clone Wars period.

After that, Insider #84 had a special 8-page Republic Holonet News feature "Special Inaugural Edition" by Daniel Wallace (with help from Pablo) that covered the formation of the Galactic Empire by self-appointed Emperor Palpatine and dated 16:5:241 (month 5 of year 16).

One of the stories recaps some of the major events in Palpatine's life, again using the Great ReSynchronization as year 0, thus showing the years before that as "Before ReSynchronization" (BrS). For example, Palpatine was born 47BrS8:11 (day 11, month 8, 47 years before the ReSynchronization). The same story shows that the invasion of Naboo happened on 3:4:14 and the Clone Wars started 13:5:21 and ended 16:5:23, the time of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Please read Dan Wallace's blog entry for his sidenotes about the article.

The Movie Years

To recap, here are the in-universe dates of the events from the 6 movies (year, month, day):

3:4:14 Episode I: The Phantom Menace
13:5:16 Episode II: Attack of the Clones
16:5:23 Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
35:3:5 Episode IV: A New Hope
38:6:9 Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
39:?:? Episode VI: Return of the Jedi