Leap Year - Leap Calendars
A
search for “Leap Year” or “Leap Day” on www.google.co.uk/
will bring you hundreds of links to histories of the calendar,
computation algorithms for Leap Seconds and Leap Days, and relics of
the Y2K scare.
Leap
Days are well explained by the Y2K webpage of the Radio and Space
Plasma Physics Group of the University of Leicester, on http://ion.le.ac.uk/year_2000/leap_year.html.
In
short, calendars count whole days, not hours or minutes, so every
calendar eventually runs slow like a faulty wristwatch.
In
54 BC Julius Caesar ordered calendar reform, and his Julian calendar
corrected annual timekeeping that had got 80 days behind. In AD 1582
Pope Gregory XIII ordered calendar reform, and his Gregorian
calendar corrected annual timekeeping that had got ten days behind.
Elizabethan
England suspected a Papist plot in the Gregorian calendar and its
elaborate formula by which every fourth year is a Leap Year except
for those century years not divisible by 400.
In
what may perhaps have been Britain’s first steps toward a European
union, King George II’s Parliament adopted the Gregorian calendar
in 1752.
Leap
Science
The
National Maritime Museum, in Greenwich, London, advertises itself as
“The Home of Time and Space”.
When
you visit the museum’s website, on www.nmm.ac.uk/site/navId/00500300f00h,
and click the “Leap years” link, you learn that scientists now
measure the year at 365.24219 days.
Because
our Gregorian calendar measures the average year at 365.2425 days,
there is shortfall of 3 days every 10,000 years. We are assured,
however, that this little error will not have a serious effect for
many thousands of years to come.
Leap
Occasions
People
born on February 29 are called Leap Day Babies. One of them
maintains the Honour Society of Leap Day Babies a website on www.leapzine.com/.
The
Anyday Page, on www.scopesys.com/anyday/,
lists many British Leap Day Babies, including Mother Ann Lee, born
in Manchester on 29 February 1736, who founded the Shakers and
immigrated to the North American Colonies in 1776. A contemporary
Leap Day Baby is stage and screen villain Joss Ackland, born 29
February 1928.
Also
the Anyday Page lists
historical events whose anniversaries come around only once each
four years. These range from the first accusations of witchcraft in
Salem, Massachusetts Colony, in 1692, to the proclamation of Jay’s
Treaty to end the War of American Independence, in 1796, to the
Beatles’ winning a Grammy for Sergeant
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in 1968.
Leap
Day was in mediaeval times considered an “Egyptian Day” -- a day
of ill luck -- according to the Pagan Calendar pages on the
website of Ghostbusters UK, on www.imps.demon.co.uk/gbuk/paganfebruary.htm.
On
Leap Day AD 992, Archbishop Oswald of York died in the act of
washing the feet of the poor, as was his daily custom during Lent.
Respected for his holiness, as in collecting relics of the
saints and promoting learning amongst the clergy, Oswald was
canonized and given the saint’s day of 28 February to assure that
he would be celebrated every year, not just every four years. You will find a quick biography of St Oswald on www.newadvent.org/cathen/11348b.htm.
Leap
Weddings
The
Weddings Past and Present
website says, “Every woman has the right to propose on 29th
February in any leap year!”, on
www.weddingspastandpresent.co.uk/
traditions.php?start_page=3.
Legend
says this tradition started in 5th century Ireland, when St Patrick
declared that yearning females could propose to men every 29
February. This is said to have been his response to St Bridget when
she complained that women had to wait so long for men to propose
marriage.
On
their About Marriage page,
on http://marriage.about.com/cs/holidays/a/leapyear.htm
Sheri and Bob Stritof say this tradition became law in 1288, when a
Scots statute allowed women to propose marriage during a Leap Year.
Any man who declined a woman’s Leap Year proposal was punished
with a fine that ranged from a kiss to the payment for a silk dress
or a pair of gloves.
No
wonder that in Gretna Green, Scotland, weddings are as popular on 29
February as on St Valentine’s Day. Being the southernmost Scots
coach stop on the route from London to Edinburgh, Gretna Green
became the traditional destination of young English runaway couples
because Scots law provided a much lower age-of-consent than did
England.
Leap
Day is more likely to be booked long in advance in Gretna Green, so
a search of “Gretna Green” on www.google.co.uk/
is in order for prospective Leap Day brides.
Finally,
you may correct anyone who calls Leap Day “Sadie Hawkins Day”.
The American cartoonist Al Capp set November as the time for Sadie
Hawkins Day, when unmarried females chased the bachelors of Dogpatch
to catch a husband. See www.lil-abner.com/.
AUTHOR: Dr Richard Tracey is an
educational researcher based in Carlsbad, California. His email
address is rtrac3y@hotmail.com.
The Union Jack’s email address is ujnews@ujnews.com.
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