There are few holidays less memorable than Leap Year.
We certainly can’t miss the major holidays like Christmas or Easter. Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day are pretty easy to recall. But President’s Day? Maybe. Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Hopefully.
4th of July at least let’s us know what day it is…
But these guys are every year, and we’ll find out they’re coming up at some point.
Like, when you show up to school on President’s Day, and no one is there. Because it is a national holiday.
I’m not saying this happened.
How do you remember it’s Leap Year, though? There aren’t Macy’s sales to celebrate Leap Year. It isn’t a national holiday. We don’t have a traditional meal for Leap Year. There isn’t a dessert to share with our loved ones to remember when we all celebrated Leap Year together…
So, besides having one extra day of laundry in the year, what exactly do you do every 4 years on February 29th?? Here’s a few options…
Listen, I could explain it, but it’s kind of precise.
Long story short, the Gregorian calendar replaced the previous Julian calendar in order to correct the placement of the vernal equinox, and thus the position of Easter and further religious holidays following.
Did you know there was no October 5th in 1582 due to the calendar switch?
Anyone else geeking out over this?? …Just me?
On the other hand, there are star charts, equinox phases, solar cycles and lunar charts that actually determine how our calendar has been arranged.
It’s like, sciencey and stuff, and very interesting for those of you…I mean us…who really loved charts in school. Did you know that Century years are NOT leap years unless they can be evenly divided by 400? That is so weird.
fiveintheforest 