A leap year is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me&8217;uberet, or a pregnant year.
date for Leap Day in 45 B.C., when theJulian calendarwas introduced, fittingly, by Emperor Julius Caesar. He or his calendar team came up with both the regular 365-day year and a Leap Day every fourth year in an effort to standardize what had been a jumble of calendars used throughout the Empire.
But leap yearisunconventional in the scientific worlds of calendar- and timekeeping, in which precision is otherwise highly valued.
To me, its Leap Day.
Youll be taking the usual Leap Day on February 29
Popes and emperors may not be tinkering with the calendar much any more, but others are. They say our lives would be less complicated if we had a uniform calendar every single year, with the same number of days each year. No more weirdly short Februarys. They could even arrange things so that our birthdays would ll on the same day of the week every year. And that Christmas would always ll on Sunday the Christian Sabbath.
Armed with a camera, a pen, and a number of rather large suitcases, she flew into the U.S. along with two friends in early October. Her planned route &8212; subject to drastic and sudden changes kicked off in New York and is taking her through Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and then all the way northeast back to New York.
Withoutthat extra day, February 29th, every four years, the calendar would work its way out of whack over time, compared to the seasons we see outside the window. Wed look out on a Christmas Day in the Northern Hemisphere, and things would look green and sultry, like July.
One last note for those who just cant get enough Leap lore:
• Since 1988 a Leap Year the adjacent towns of Anthony, Texas, and Anthony, New Mexico, have called their twin cities the Leap Year Capital of the World. They did this, they admit, because nobody else had. Over the years, theyve held festivals each Leap Year and organized a birthday club of leaplings, some of whom showed up at the festivals.
In the show, Frederic, a gullible young pirates apprentice, learns that, because he was born on a Leap Day, he must serve the surly pirates until his 21
Ted writes about the thousands of places he has visited and written about as a broadcaster and book author.Ted Landphair&8217;s Americaoften showcases the work of his wife and traveling companion, renowned American photographer Carol M. Highsmith.
Descriptive. A pregnant year.
Or justaboutevery four years, as Ill explain later.
Well, noteveryHanke-Henry year is identical. They, too, are leapers, if not leaplings. They create a whole Leapat the end of the year every five or six years. It even has its own name: Xtr. The minute Xtr is over, were to slide right back into a uniform 364-day year for the next four or five years. So even these brainy fellows couldnt outfox the sun.
Thats one of many Leap Year oddities that intrigue mathematicians, astronomers, and the rest of the bistile crowd but whiz past you and me.
The Gregorian calendar tidied things up, celestially, by instituting that every four years except those divisible by 100 but not divisible by 400 Leap-Year wrinkle.
I scrounged around for bigeventsthat happened on a February 29
• The odds thatanyonewill be a Leap Baby are 1 in 1,461. That means that if you attend one of those big soccer matches at a stadium that holds 100,000 people and you walk around a lot rather than watch the action you could conceivably, though not likely, bump into 68 Leap Day birth persons, or whatever you call them.
Every year and a half or so, the international scientific service that measures the earths rotation decrees a 1-second halt to atomic clocks, the most accurate timepieces ever used. For reasons I wouldnt even try to explain, the Earths rotation is almost imperceptibly slowing. (Global warming?) So we need to tap the brakes on atomic clocks to keep them synchronized, or close to it, with whats happening underneath us all.
Youll understand why, I hope, as we review the colorful history of Leap Year. All right, maybe colorful is a stretch. How about moderately interesting, in an intercalary sort of way?
, make a couple of calls.
The delegates decision was just handed me! They decided not to decide, pending further study.
Youve probably heard of aLeapSecond. This serves a similar function to Leap Year, but in the realm of timekeeping.
This item caught my eye, though: On February 29th, 1952, the City of New York turned on the fohio marriage licenseirst electronic street-crossing signs. They read, simply, WALK, in white lights or neon, during the time that the traffic light was in the pedestrians vor or DONT WALK, in red, the rest of the time.
An idea launched on a Leap Day. (Glyn Lowe Photos, Flickr Creative Commons)
or those who marry on that date. If theyre strict about birth and anniversary days, they wont be enjoying as many parties and celebration dinners as the rest of us. Someone born on February 29
• Jimmy Dorsey (1904) became a gifted saxophonist and big-band leader.
Hanke-Henry would have a February 29th EVERY year. (amandabhslater, Flickr Creative Commons)
Thats .242190 days, or about a quarter of a day, that the earth is huffing and puffing to complete its rotation each year. (Its a metaphor. Work with me.) Those quarter-days would really add up over time if we didnt account for them every four years or so with Leap Days.
Bistilers, maybe.
There was a lot of leaping in Anthony. This year, maybe not so much. (Stephen Poff, Flickr Creative Commons)
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• Dinah Shore (1916) was a popular American singer, actress, and early talk-show host.
It took a millennium-and-a-half to change that calendar much, at least in the West. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII were therereally12 previous Pope Gregories? revised the Julian calendar. It became known, not very imaginatively, as theGregorian calendar, not to be confused with Gregorian chants. That was one of those other Gregories.
There have been instances in which people born on a February 29
While just about everybody in the world who scratches out a calendar devises some sort of leap of time to keep the seasons and the calendar in balance, not everyone does it the way Pope Gregory did. The Persian calendar, for instance, sticks in a Leap Dayalmostevery four years, [adult school] senior school Government schools ready to handle medical emergencies? (0) 2011-12-27 14:39:2 but waits until a fifth year every once in awhile.
Sorority women at Ohio University had great fun with this idea by proposing marriage to assorted fraternity men on February 29th, often over a pitcher of beer. I lost a fine shillelagh in 1964.
Pope Gregory, as painted by Lavinia Fontana in the 16th Century. (Wikipedia Commons)
birthday, rather than for 21 years. In other words, until hes 84. Various oratorios ensue as a result.
Youll remember (wont you?) that I said Leap Years come along almostevery four years?
The calendar company had to print an extra page in 2008 and will again this year. (Nieve44/La Luz, Flickr Creative Commons)
Guest blogger Selah Hennessy will be documenting her own travels around the U.S. here on Ted Landphair&8217;s America.
So you just noticed that this is a Leap Year in most of the world, and you want to know everything there is to know about this phenomenon. You have leapt to the right place.
Government agencies, insurance companies, and others with highly crunchy computers, too, make adjustments for Leap Year, although skinflint financial officers and payroll chiefs arent thrilled about the extra day of pay.
Shillelagh. A shortage or scarcity of something.
. Thats because of an old tradition that some trace back to about 500 A.D. in Ireland.
But just on Leap Day every four years. Stiff penalties, such as forfeiture of cattle, or maybe a shillelagh, would follow if the lads refused the propositions.
That&39;s little Ellie, a leapling, and his mom. (Jason Tromm, Flickr Creative Commons)
You have my permission to pause here to digest the previous sentence. You may use both your fingers and a calculator if it will help.
But read this closely, now all those Leap Days actuallycompensate, just a hair, over three or four centuries time. So Gregory came up with the idea o Leap Year every once in a long while. He set us up for a Leap Year every four yearsin three out of four century years. 2000: yes. 2100: no. 2200: no. 2300: no. 2400:voila!
Some Chinese, Egyptian Coptic, Ethiopian, Hindu, and Jewish calendars add a whole Leapevery now and then. In the Jewish case, according to thetimeanddate.comWeb site, An extra month, Adar I, is added after the month of Shevat and before the month of Adar in a leap year. According to Jewish tradition, Adar is a lucky and happy month.
Selahs a California girl by birth and lived until she was 15 in the rainy western US state of Washington. For the last ten years, she has been living in London and various other spots in Europe and West Africa. She worked out of VOA&8217;s West Africa bureau in Dakar and also filed for VOA in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now shes back in the United States to check out how her home country is doing after all these years and to file features for VOA about American life.
But representatives of many of the worlds governments met this very week in Geneva to considerthe leap second. Why? Because the act of stopping and starting the delicate timepieces is imprecise and might, they feared, be adversely affecting the clocks accuracy.
My birthday would always ll on a Monday. Boo. Who wants to boogie on Monday?
Paucity. A shortage or scarcity of something.
Leap Year obviously directly affects those born on a February 29
I thought it would be neat to close this expedition with an apt or funny Leap Year quotation. Unfortunately, I couldnt find any. If you know of one, send it in . . . before February 29
A variation on Saint Brigid&39;s idea. Look who&39;s roping whom! (riptheskull, Flickr Creative Commons)
• Herman Hollerith, born in 1860, for instance, invented the first tabulating machine, using punch cards.
Leap Year has been around since the Egyptians came up with the idea a couple of hundred years before Christ. The Romans picked the February 29
Ted welcomes feedback, questions, and ideas.Watch a video about Ted and Carol by VOA&8217;s Nico Colombant.
Under the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar, named after Professor Henry and economist Steve Hanke, every date and day are the same each year forever!
But wait, you sharp-eyed readers are asking, what about that extra quarter-day earths rotation time each year that we now sop up with a Leap Day once every four years? We dont want our springs to look like ll one day, remember?
The result is as close to perfect at keeping summers looking like summers and winters looking like winters as anybody had made it.
More fun cts about Leap Years:
This just in, though. The Anthony Chamber of Commerce, which had sponsored the festivities, just backed out, claiming a lack of personnel and money to keep it up. So if youve booked a trip to Anthony for February 29
It reminds me of Gilbert and Sullivans comic operaThe Pirates of Penzance, in which I sang the major-generals part in high school. Thats the only reason I know this:
In case you havent peeked at February the coming short month that most of my friends and mily routinely mispronounce as Feb-U-wary it has a rump day, an extra day, or what astronomers call an intercalary day this yeLooking at Leaping ohio marriage licensear. Its even called a bistile day in some scientific circles that I do not frequent.
Some moderately mous Leap Day babies have managed to muddle through life, however:
Looking at Leaping ohio marriage license,Actually, Leap Year isnt exactly a phenomenon, since its existence was quite planned, and it comes around predictably once every four years.
Ill snag the reason for you, however: Theres a Leap Day every four yearsthose that are divisible by 100 butdivisible by 400.
the rest of the years.
A woman later canonized as Saint Brigid of Kildare supposedly made a deal with a man who became a more mous saint Patrick who agreed to allow women to propose marriage to men.
These are a few words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, Ill tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive ofTeds Wild Wordsin the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if theres another word that youd like me to explain, just ask!
, 2096. But youll have to hang in eight years instead of four, until 2104, for the next one. February 2100 will have only 28 days.
How about a breather in all this? Some refreshing Leap Year ctoids!
Thats exactly what two scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, proposed this past December . . . a little late for a 2012 rollout.
I remember my fraternity brothers, back in my college days, keeping a low profile on February 29
The Islamic Hijri calendar, which is based on themoonsmotion rather than the earths trip around the sun, posts only 354 days in a typical year. It then tacks an extra Leap Day onto thelastmonth of the year 11 years out of 30.
have been . . . whats a polite term . . . mistreated as a result of the happenstance of their birth. One fellow I read about had to wait several months to get a drivers license because the computer at his states Motor Vehicle Administration didnt know how to deal with his February 29 date of birth. Even though he was tall for a 4-year-old, sported cial stubble, and had quite a deep voice for a tyke, rules were rules. The state doesnt issue licenses to 4½-year-olds.
Heres why: We add the leap year quadrennially because it takes the earth a tiny bitthan 365 days to make a complete revolution around the sun in one year: 365.242190 days is a little more like it.
birthday next month.
This is a r-ranging exploration of American life by a veteran Voice of America &8220;Americana&8221; reporter and essayist.
One of the profs, astrophysicist Richard Henry, comes right out and admits it: The calendar Im advocating isnt nearly as accurate, he toldlivescience.com. But its r more convenient.
Looks like this was a children&39;s story. (MrSchuReads, Flickr Creative Commons)
Every year would have 364 days 30 days in January and February, 31 in March, and the same pattern each three months the rest of the year.
Happy birthday, you little nipper!
But lets get back to science.
• People born on a Leap Day are called leaplings. Cute little leaplings!
The year 2000 was a leap year, but 1700, 1800, and 1900 werent. Nor will 2100 be, in case you stand a chance of being around 88 years from now and are interested.
Here&39;s Calendar Man, better known as Julius Caesar, as seen in a bust shioned during his lifetime. (Tataryn77, Wikipedia Commons)
• and Henri The Pocket Rocket Richard (1936), a star hockey player, scored 538 goals for the Montreal Canadiens. And just think, he wasnt even 5 when he started, if you go by his birthdays.
People in this predicament (or their parents) usually make up for the paucity of celebrations by marking the event on February 29
Right now, he said, Everybody has to redo their [personal] calendars all the time. For sports schedules, for schools, for every damn thing. Its completely unnecessary.
