And you thought daylight saving time was confusing.
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The Julian calendar – used by the Roman Empire and named after Julius Caesar – had followed the ancient Egyptian calendar and added an extra day every four years.
None of which resolves the nagging question: when DOES a Leap Year Day baby celebrate his or her birth in a NON-Leap Year… on February 28th, or March 1st? Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga explains.
Leap Year is considered unlucky in Scotland where rural superstitions say the extra day reeks havoc on the agricultural world, according to the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore and the Occult Sciences of the World. For additional video content, click the “video” tab at the top of this page.
Tomorrow, February 29th, we celebrate that quadrennial anomaly known as Leap Year Day.
This year February will have 29 days instead of 28 and will be called a leap year. The town hosts a celebration every four years.
That’s because this is a leap year and it is the ninth leap year in the last 36 years. We also made the little mash-up above.
The Earth’s rotation is slowing down by around two thousandths of a second per day.
“By the error of having every fourth year a leap year, in the sixteenth century, the official dates had fallen ten days behind the sun in the movements through the signs of the zodiac”. That is, three years out of every four contain 365 days each and each year whose number is evenly divisible by four is a bissextile or leap year. We know that 1 year is the time it takes the Earth to complete 1 revolution around the sun.
Leap Day is also St. Oswald’s Day, after the York archbishop who died February 29 in 992. It should be a big deal!
Enjoy your bonus day folks!
Heck, maybe we should do that anyway! You could talk with God and offer prayers for those in need.
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The first warrants of the Salem witch trials were issued on February 29, 1692. It’s what we do with all 365 or 366 days of the year that really matters.
