February 29

[Tora Ziyal]

February 29 is international Rare Disease Day.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

February 29 is international Rare Disease Day.

So, we decided we needed a Rare Disease Day, but we didn't want to have to deal with it very often. So we put it on the day that only comes around every four years.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

^ It's actually an annual event. In non-leap years, it's on either February 28 or March 1, I forget which. But, yes, the date is deliberate.

 

[Skywalker]

My brother's getting married tomorrow. Does that mean he'll only have to remember their anniversary every four years?

 

[Lumi]

Ask his wife.

 

[Miss Chicken]

In case anyone is interested - roughly speaking, the chances of someone being born on 29 February is one in every 1461 people.

 

[Trekker4747]

2000 was a leap year, because it was a Summer Olympics year. if there's a Summer Olympics, it's a leap year.

It's only a leap year in the years ending 1900, 2000, 2100, 2200 etc.. if it's divisible by 400 exactly. so 2400 will be a leap year as will 2800 but not 2500 or 2600 etc..

And 2000 was a leap year because it was the start of a millennium. So the year 4000 will be a leap year even though it's divisible by 400 since it's the start of a millennium.

The primary reason for this is because a year isn't exactly 365.25 days long, every four years we compensate by adding too much time so, once every great while we need to skip a leap year to keep on track. I suspect that having a leap year every few millenniums is to further compensate for that.

(A year is exactly 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds long.)

I find this sort of thing fascinating so I've been doing some quick math:

1900 was not a leap year (it was a centennial leap year that was not divisible by 400.)

Between 1900 and 2000 (which was a leap year) we added about 6 hours and 15 minutes "too much" to time in order to keep everything in order.

By 2300 we'll have added an entire day (plus a little over an hour) to the way we track the calendar hence the need to skip a leap day that year, we've added too much time and need to get back on track and we'd still be over by an hour or so, so 9600 years from then we'll need to do something else to further keep things on track.

 

[Lumi]

In case anyone is interested - roughly speaking, the chances of someone being born on 29 February is one in every 1461 people.

My birthday is March 1st. My mother went into labor with us (I am a twin) in the early morning hours. I was almost one of those.

 

[Candlelight]

My nephew is now 3 years old. He was born in 2000.

I remember joining a discussion with a couple of people about this. They couldn't decide whether to celebrate a birthday on the 28th of Feb or the 1st of March on non-leap years.

It went on for a while but I basically shut them up when I said the birthday 'should' fall on the day after the 28th, so the 1st of March or the 29th of Feb.

They agreed.

 

[Trekker4747]

You’re correct. Trekker got it the wrong way round.

The change in the leap-year rule was made when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582. It brought the calendar much more closely in sync with the solstices and equinoxes. The current calendar isn’t perfect, though — it’ll be one day ahead by the year 6000-something. We’ll worry about it then.

Ms. Chicken got it the wrong way around.

1900 was not a leap year, it was a centennial year not divisible by 400.

2000 was a leap year it was a centennial year that was divisible by 400.

LINK

Some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a solar year is slightly less than 365.25 days. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years. For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Similarly, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be.

And, yeah, my math says that every time we skip a leap year we're still ahead by a little over an hour which means that after 24 instances of us skipping a leap year we'll have one too many days which, I think, means we'll actually have to subtract a day from the calendar one year

 

[scotpens]

It's only a leap year in the years ending 1900, 2000, 2100, 2200 etc.. if it's divisible by 400 exactly. so 2400 will be a leap year as will 2800 but not 2500 or 2600 etc..

Ans 2000 was not a leap year because it was the start of a millennium.

Uh, 2000 was a leap year.

You’re making things more complicated than they really are.

Link

Leap years were to occur every four years (a continuation of the existing custom), unless it was a centennial year. These were no longer automatically leap years; instead, centennial years followed the same pattern as normal years: every fourth centennial year was a leap year. (Put simply, Gregory decreed that while 1600 was to remain a leap year, 1700, 1800 and 1900 would not have any extra days, but following these three 2000 would again be a leap year, and so on.)

. . . Pope Gregory had intended to stabilize a changing calendar by reforming the frequency of leap years. These changes were not perfect, because the Gregorian Calendar remained slightly out of sync with the Solar year. However, the difference is less than thirty seconds and, depending on which calculation of the solar year you use, will only gain an extra day roughly every 3000 or 10,000 years.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Strangely I got it wrong in my initial post but right in the posts that followed it. I am not sure why I said it wrong in my first post as I had only looked it up 5 minutes before and later on, in a different post, I actually pointed out that 1900 was not a leap year totally contradicting myself. I will put it down to having a brain fart after remembering my friend's 'no 28th of February" comment.

 

[Trekker4747]

It's only a leap year in the years ending 1900, 2000, 2100, 2200 etc.. if it's divisible by 400 exactly. so 2400 will be a leap year as will 2800 but not 2500 or 2600 etc..

Ans 2000 was not a leap year because it was the start of a millennium.

Uh, 2000 was a leap year.

You’re making things more complicated than they really are.

Got it, that was a simple typo. My intent was to say 2000 was a leap year, but 1900 wasn't to counter Ms Chicken saying this:

I looked it up when I got home and found out that 1600 and 2000 etc were not leap years because they were divisible by 400. 1700, 1800, 1900 etc were leap years.

 

[Gil T.Azell]

Happy Pink Shirt Day

 

[SPOCKED]

Today is my sister's "13th" birthday

 

[JayOwl]

My little brother was 12 yesterday. Heh.

 

[Holdfast]

Hope everyone enjoyed/is enjoying an extra working day; GDP FTW.

 

[Candlelight]

Someone said to me that it was the one year anniversary of her proposing to her hubby... but they had been married two years.

 

[doubleohfive]

I have come to love March 1.

November - February is typically the time of year when bad things happen to or for me or to or for the people I love. As usual, shit went down this year also, and I'm thrilled to finally be through this gaping black hole of time and finally back on to the good side of the calendar.

 

[Trekker4747]

This March 1 not working out well for me, I've got $900 in brake work I need done to my car.