According to http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leapyear.html, this is some Leap Year info for ya...Why Leap Years Are Used?
February 29, 2008
The year 2008 is a leap year. If you look at a 2008 calendar, you will see that February has five Fridays–the month begins and ends on a Friday. Between the years 1904 and 2096, leap years that share the same day of week for each date repeat only every 28 years. The most recent year in which February comprised five Fridays was in 1980, and the next occurrence will be in 2036. February 29, the leap day, has been associated with age-old traditions, superstitions and folklore.
What is a leap year?
A leap year is a year in which one extra day has been inserted, or intercalated, at the end of February. A leap year consists of 366 days, whereas other years, called common years, have 365 days.
Which years are leap years?
In the Gregorian calendar, the calendar used by most modern countries, the following three criteria determine which years will be leap years:
Every year that is divisible by four is a leap year;
of those years, if it can be divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless
the year is divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
According to the above criteria, that means that years 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years, while year 2000 and 2400 are leap years.
It is interesting to note that 2000 was somewhat special as it was the first instance when the third criterion was used in most parts of the world.
In the Julian calendar–introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and patterned after the Roman calendar–there was only one rule: any year divisible by four would be a leap year. This calendar was used before the Gregorian calendar was adopted.
Why are leap years needed?
Leap years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth's revolutions around the sun.
And a few facts that I like stolen from an article on MSN today:
Usually, people born on a leap day simply choose to celebrate their birthdays on Feb. 28 or March 1. But sometimes the missing day can lead to tragedy. In the famous Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, a main character is locked into a life-long apprenticeship with a pirate crew when he realizes his contract releases him on his twenty-first birthday--and because he's a leapling, that won't come around until his eighties. (This is one of my favorite leap day facts as I find that part of this show absolutely hilarious!)
And here are a few famous births on that day (from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_29#Births):
1468: Pope Paul III
1904: Jimmy Dorsey (American Bandleader)
1916: Dinah Shore (American Singer)
1956: Aileen Wuornos (Serial Killer played by Charlize Theron in Monster. Theron won best actress award for this...)
1960: Richard Ramirez (Serial Killer-I only include this one because as I review Wikipedia's list, I am starting to worry that leap day is a very popular birthday for serial killers...)
1972: Antonio Sabato Jr (Actor-and finally a hot guy on the list!!!)
I hope you have enjoyed your lesson on Leap day! I know I did-and BTW-if you are still reading-way to go-you rock!!!
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2 comments:
That is very interesting. . . I did not know 99.9% of that. Happy Leap Day/Year! I think I may steal this for my blog, that's how imformative and itneresting I found that. ;)
BTW-you should go check out my blog. . . I put something up that made me think of you. . . . you'll know what I'm talking about. . . and no, I'm not talking about this post that I stole from your blog.
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