Most of the world uses the
Gregorian Calendar. We are currently in the year 2013. Even China
also follows this calendar, although it also celebrates its own New
year.
North Korea uses the names of months we are familiar with, but the
calendar year one begins in 1912 rather than two thousand years ago.
That year, 1912 was the birth of former North Korea despot Kim
Il-sung (grandfather of Kim Jong-un). Three years after Kim
Il-sung’s death, the nation promulgated the new Juche calendar after
the state’s official ideology of the same name.
It is a government allusion to the idea of Kim Il-sung as god. When
Kim Il-sung died, his son and successor, Kim Jong-il redid the
calendar to imply that his father was divine. In September 1998, the
North Korean constitution deemed Kim Il-sung the “Eternal President
of the Republic.” Nice to have a family tradition that changes
the calendar for an entire nation.