Most people around the globe look at some form of a calendar every single day. Business executives check to see when their meetings are scheduled. The busy mom confirms soccer practices and piano lessons. College students ensure that their papers are turned in on time and they have plenty of time to study for their history exams. For the people of ancient Maya, calendars were just as important to daily life as they are to people today. In this article, we'll look at how the Mayan calendar came to be and the meaning behind each type of calendar the Mayans created. First, let's get a little background on the Mayans.

Stephen Sweet/Dreamstime A traditional Mayan calendar

The Mayans originated in a region called Mesoamerica, or Middle America. This region lies in between Mexico and South America and was home to many other cultures, including the Aztec, Olmec, Teotihuacan and Toltec. The Mayans lived in what are today's Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and Southern Mexico (Yucatan, Campeche, Quintana Roo Tabasco and Chiapas).

Mayan history is broken into three periods:

• Formative or Pre-classic - 2000 B.C. until A.D. 300
• Classic - A.D. 300 until A.D. 900
• Post-classic - A.D. 900 until the Spanish Inquisition in the 1400s

Mesoamericans began writing during the mid-Pre-classic period. The Mayans were the first to keep any sort of historical record, and the beginnings of the calendar were born. The Mayans used stelae, or stone monuments, to carve their civil events, calendars and astronomy knowledge. They also recorded their religious beliefs and mythology on pottery.

More on the MayansThe ancient Mayans were one of the most sophisticated civilizations in the New World. Check out these links to learn more about the history of Mayans: Maya Indians History of Guatemala History of Mexico Will the world really end in 2012?

The Mayans weren't the first ever to use a calendar -- there were ancient calendars in use throughout civilizations worldwide -- but they did create four different calendars. Depending on their needs, the Mayans used different calendars to record each event, either alone, or in some combination of two calendars.

On the next page, we'll take a look at the first calendar used by the Mayans, the Tzolk'in calendar.

Mayan Math Along with their advances to the calendar, the Mayans also created their own math system. They used a series of dots and bars to signify numbers. One dot equaled one unit while one bar equaled five units. A shell symbol signified zero. ©2007 HowStuffWorks Mayan mathematical system-1-20 In a system similar to the one we use now, the Mayans used place values to designate large numbers. However, the similarities end there. Their place values are vertical, where ours are horizontal. For instance, we write the number 27 horizontally -- the number 2, then the number 7 to the right of it. The Mayans, however, would write 27 vertically -- their symbol for 7 (a line with 2 dots over it) would be on the bottom, and the symbol for 20 (a dot on the line above) would be directly over it. The same applies for other numbers, like 29. Mayan math - 27 Mayan math - 29 ­ ­