cool Leap Year stuff:
From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 29, 1995, p.2:
Most years ending in "00" are not leap
years, but those divisible by 400 (including 2000)
are. The Julian calendar, authorized by Julius
Caesar in 46 B.C., assumed that the year had
365 1/4 days, with a 366-day leap year added
every fourth year.
In A.D. 730, an Anglo-Saxon monk, the Venerable
Bede, calculated that the Julian year was 11 minutes
and 14 seconds too long, an error of about one day
every 128 years. But nothing was done about it for
800 years. In 1582, the accumulated error was
estimated at 10 days, and Pope Gregory XIII decreed
that the day following Oct. 4 would be Oct. 15.
To make future adjustments for the error
(about three days every 400 years), it was decided
that years ending in "00" would be common years rather
than leap years -- except those divisible by 400.
So 1600 was a leap year and 2000 also will be,
but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. |
