One More Day for February…

Johnny-on-the-Spot … by John Foster …

2024 is a “leap year”.

That means the 2nd month has 29 days.

How come?

Well, normally, the calendar year is 365 days, the number of days it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun.

But actually, it’s a little longer that that.

Three hundred sixty five point 242190 days.

Precisely 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 56 seconds.

So, to keep things orderly, it was decided that every 4 years, February would have an extra day, or 29 total.

Without us doing that, we’d experience “season drift”.

After about 700 years, spring would be in December and winter would start in June.

However, the difference is actually 23.262222 hours, an actual “sidereal year”.

That means if we did leap year every 4 years, we’d still have that calendar drift to deal with.

That’s why leap years can be divided by 100 and 400.

It’s also why we won’t have a leap year in 2100.

Thanks to leap years, our seasons stay in synch, despite climate change or global warming.

We can blame the ancient Romans for all this.

The Roman calendar was used prior to the Julian calendar and it had a leap day added after February 24th.

But then Julius Caesar decided that 46BC would be 445 days long.

It was called the “Year of Confusion”.

In 1970, the Temptations released “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today)”.

Now I’ve really confused you.

But then, JC decreed a year would be 365.25 days long and he added a leap year every 4th year.

Prior to that, the Gregorian calendar, with 10 months, was the standard.

Six months with 30 days and 4 months with 31 days.

That made 304. Confusion, right?

Then Roman King Numa Pompilius added January and February.

A step in the right direction until Pompilius remembered even numbers were considered bad luck in those days.

The sum of any even amount of odd numbers will always equal an even number.

So, Pompilius decreed February would have but 28 days and would host the Roman ritual honoring the dead.

This month that is difficult to properly pronounce comes from “februum” (purification) and “februa” (the rites or instruments used for purification).

Did you know that babies born on February 29th are considered “leapers” or “leaplings” but you only have a one in 1,461 chance of being born on that date.

Some famous “leapers” or “leaplings” include Dinah Shore, Jimmy Dorsey, Pope Paul III along with actors Dennis Farina and Alex Rocco (he played Moe Greene in “The Godfather”).

Some even believe Superman might have been born on February 29th.

In Greece, it’s considered bad luck to get married on a leap year.

Maybe the groundhog would have better luck forecasting the end of winter if we kept 29 days in February and took one from March.

That would change one of my old jokes.

Why are soldiers so tired on April 1st?

They’ve just finished a “march” of 31 days.

So Julius Caesar takes the blame for this leap year business.

Et tu, Brute.