Last year, I published a post explaining some of the unusual attributes of my birthday month, February. I mean, it’s short and it’s spelled funny! What’s the deal? (Turns out, it has a lot to do with the Romans.) But I left out an important quirk about February – Leap Years! Since 2020 is a Leap Year, I figured Word Nerds would want to know how we got here. Turns out we can blame Leap Years on the Romans too.
Our modern calendar is 365 days long and is based on the Earth’s movement around the Sun. However, it actually takes the Earth 365.2421 days to orbit the Sun, and over time, not including that quarter of a day adds up. We add a Leap Day every fourth year to keep our calendar matched up with astronomy.
In ancient times, the year was based on the lunar cycles and actually didn’t include some months. In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar, ruler of the Roman Empire, revamped the calendar so it was based on the sun. This “Julian Calendar” included 12 months, 365 days, and a Leap Year every four years. However, an extra Leap Day every four years added an extra 11 minutes every year, which meant that by the 14th century, the calendar was 10 days off of the solar year.
According to History.com, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII fixed this problem by modifying the calendar to include Leap Years every four years except for years divisible by 100 and not 400. The year 1900 was not a leap year because 1900 is not evenly divisible by 400. (1900 / 400 = 4.75) We use this “Gregorian calendar” today, although it still has problems that will need to be fixed. I’m also a little confused, because 2020 isn’t evenly divisible by 400. 2020 / 400 = 5.05. Guess that .05 is a negligible issue needing future correction?
What other calendar quirks does the Word Nerd need to explore?
Thanks for getting nerdy with me!
