Show Why Every Day Counts 1 A Brief History of Leap Year Lisa Young Contributing Writer There is a 1 in 1506 chance of someone being born bom on a Leap Day This year leap day is Sunday February 29 The calendar year is days long unless the year is exactly divisible by 4 which is then a lea leap year If the year is the last year of a a century eg ego 1800 1900 2000 then it is only a leap year if it is exactly divisible by The reason for these rules is to keep the length of the Earths Earth's orbit around the Sun the same The seasons seasons seasons sea sea- sons will then occur during the same months each year The Romans made a calendar of days in a year To keep up with the seasons an extra 22 or 23 day was added every second year This extra month was only observed every now and then By Julius Caesars Caesar's time the seasons were no longer occurring at atthe atthe atthe the same time each year To correct this Caesar eliminated the extra month and added one or two extra days to the end of various various months In the Julian calendar each year contained contained contained con con- 12 months with an average of days in a year This was achieved by having three years containing containing containing con con- 36 days and one year containing containing containing con con- days The Julian calendar was used in the west until 1582 Prior to 1582 Pope Gregory XIII recognized that Easter was getting closer to Christmas In order to keep Easter at approximately the same time each year the Pope reformed the calendar so I that a leap day would occur in any year divisible by 4 not divisible by except when the year is divisible by The adoption of the Gregorian calendar was made in Catholic countries in 1582 The Gregorian calendar also stipulated that the year should start on January 1 In non-Catholic non countries the change was made later Britain and her colonies made the change in 1752 when September 2 was followed by September 14 and New Years Year's Day was changed from March 25 to January 1 The calendar we use today still known as the Gregorian Gregorian calendar makes a year days only off from our solar year by This amounts to only one days day's error after years There here are 97 leap days in years With a three hour dIfference difference difference dif dIf- dif dif- ference every years this is a little littleover littleover littleover over a day every years Some famous Leap Year babies are 1968 Chucky Brown forward Houston Rockets Atlanta Hawks 1972 Saul Williams Rap Poet Actor USA 1976 David Kendall Sr Actor USA 1976 Ja Rule Rap Artist USA 1980 Actor Actor Germany |