Today is February 29th. Happy Leap Day! Here is what the NY Times had to say in their Sky Watch section:
Leap Day is an artifact that dates back to 46 B.C. when Julius Caesar took the advice of Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer, who knew that the solar year was about 365.25 days in length. So to account for that residual quarter of a day, leap day was added to the calendar every four years.
Unfortunately, the new Julian calendar was 11 minutes and 4 seconds longer than the actual solar year. By 1582 the calendar had fallen out of step with the solar year by 10 days. It was then that Pope Gregory XIII, with the advice of his own astronomer, Clavius, produced the Gregorian calendar. Ten days were omitted after Oct 4, 1582, making the next day Oct. 15. Then, to closely match the length of the solar year, leap years were skipped in century years. The exceptions were those equally divisible by 400. That is why 2000 was a leap year but 1900 was not.
Whew! Do we really know what day it is ... or not?
Posted by Lynne on 02/29/2008 at 05:27 AM
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