It takes the Earth about 365.242189 days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds) to go around the sun one time. The calendar we use has only 365 days, so if we didn’t add an extra day about every 4 years, we would “lose” almost six hours every year. So someone (Julius Caesar was the first about 46 B.C.) introduced the leap year – adding an extra day to the year. Of course Julius Caesar used the Julian calendar and he decided that any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year. His concept wasn’t all that bad, but his math was a little off. Today, using the Gregorian calendar, there’s a leap year every year that is divisible by four, except for years that are both divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400. That rule was added to make up for the fact that an extra day every four years was too much of a correction…. but we don’t skip leap days too often — the last time a leap day was skipped was February of 1900. The next time will be February of 2100. I’m not sure of the significance of this, but leap years are the only years when January 1st and December 31st fall on different days of the week — every other year they’ve on the same day.
Anyhow, approximately every four years we get an extra day. It’s added at the end of February — I suppose because February got short changed with the current calendar, having normally only 28 days.
Anthony, Texas and Anthony, New Mexico have proclaimed themselves the Leap Year Capitals of the World. They hold a leap year festival every leap year that includes a huge birthday party for everyone born on February 29th — they require an ID as proof of birth….
So we wind up with an extra day — if you’re on a fixed salary, you work for free. And if you’re inclined to break the law, try not to be sentenced to a year in jail this year — in the eyes of the law, a year has 12 months, not 365 days. So… unlucky criminals serving time in a leap year spend an extra night in the slammer. I guess it’s good news that you have an extra day to do your taxes in 2016.
But I’m still of the opinion that the 29th should be a free day. Why should you have to work an extra day in February? Leap day should just be a day that doesn’t count. This should be a phantom day — anything you say or do doesn’t count. I figure we all deserve at least one day every four years or so just for ourselves. And of course if you’re one of those that are always complaining that you need more time — here it is, a whole extra day!
— 30 —