Entry for February 29, 2008
Greetings friends,
Today you are seeing something that you won't see for another 4 years. Nope, it's not all the hoopla surrounding the upcoming elections. It's February 29th! This is leap day. With a rare exception, once every 4 years we have one--February 29th that is.
Before modern calendar-keeping , February 24th was leap day because way back then, February was the last day of the year. This old calendar was the Roman calendar and every few years an extra month was added so that the calendar was in sync with the change of seasons.
Then, in 45 BCE, the Julian calendar was adopted. This meant that an extra day was added at the end of February every 4 years. Nope this isn't quite the modern system of keeping track of days, months and years--but we're getting close.
The "modern" calendar was instituted in 1582 by Pope Gregory. This calendar is know as the Gregorian calendar. He kept with the idea of every 4th year being a leap year but with the exception being that a century year is not a leap year unless it is evenly divisible by 4. (Originally posted on my Yahoo 360 blog)
Today you are seeing something that you won't see for another 4 years. Nope, it's not all the hoopla surrounding the upcoming elections. It's February 29th! This is leap day. With a rare exception, once every 4 years we have one--February 29th that is.
Before modern calendar-keeping , February 24th was leap day because way back then, February was the last day of the year. This old calendar was the Roman calendar and every few years an extra month was added so that the calendar was in sync with the change of seasons.
Then, in 45 BCE, the Julian calendar was adopted. This meant that an extra day was added at the end of February every 4 years. Nope this isn't quite the modern system of keeping track of days, months and years--but we're getting close.
The "modern" calendar was instituted in 1582 by Pope Gregory. This calendar is know as the Gregorian calendar. He kept with the idea of every 4th year being a leap year but with the exception being that a century year is not a leap year unless it is evenly divisible by 4. (Originally posted on my Yahoo 360 blog)
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