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Since 2008 is a leap year, The
McKenzie Banner is looking for local
area persons who will be celebrating their
birthdays on February 29. The Banner would
like to publish your photo, give a brief
history, tell how you plan to celebrate,
etc. Please visit the Banner at 3 Banner Row
in downtown McKenzie or call 352-3323.
A person born on February 29 may be called a
“leapling.” In common years they usually
celebrate their birthdays on February 28 or
March 1. Only once every four years are they
actually able to celebrate their birthday on
the actual birth date.
Why Leap Years Are Used
Leap years are needed so that the calendar
is in alignment with the earth’s motion
around the sun. The 365 days of the annual
calendar are meant to match up with the
solar year. A solar year is the time it
takes the Earth to complete its orbit around
the sun – about one year. But the actual
times it takes for the Earth to travel
around the sun is in fact a little longer
than that – about 365 ¼ days (365 days, 5
hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be
precise). So the calendar and the solar year
don’t completely match – the calendar year
is a touch shorter than the solar year.
It may not seem like much of a difference,
but after a few years those extra quarter
days in the solar year begin to add up.
After four years, for example, the four
extra quarter days would make the calendar
fall behind the solar year by about a day.
Over the course of a century, the difference
between the solar year and the calendar year
would become 25 days! So every four years a
leap day is added to the calendar to allow
it to catch up to the solar year.
In the Gregorian calendar, which is the
calendar used by most modern countries, the
following rules decide which years are leap
years: (1) Every year divisible by 4 is a
leap year. (2) But every year divisible by
100 is not a leap year. (3) Unless the year
is also divisible by 400, then it is still a
leap year.
This means that the year 1800, 1900, 2100,
2200, 2300 and 2500 are not leap years,
while 2000 and 2400 are leap years.
That means the year 2000 was kind of
special, as it was the first time the third
rule was used in many parts of the world.
February 2008 has five Fridays – it starts
and ends on a Friday. Between 1904 and 2096,
leap years with the same day of the week for
each date repeat every 28 years which mean
that the last time February had five Fridays
was in 1980 and the next time will be in
2036. |
The McKenzie Banner
