Does anybody know when we started using leap years in our calender system? Since my story is in a journal format and I am approaching February in the in-story time, I am not sure if I am going to need to worry about it or not.
Does anybody know?
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"Bearing ourselves humbly before God ... we await undismayed the impending assault ... be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parlay; we may show mercy – we shall ask for none." ~ Winston Churchill, July 1940
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Nov 4, 2009 - 23 50
Um, it depends on where you're at in the world. The Gregorian calendar, which is the one with February 29 as the leap day, was adopted in most of Catholic Europe around 1582, but a lot of Protestant Europe didn't adopt it until later. England didn't until 1752. Russia didn't until 1918. Not that Russia was a Protestant country -- they just weren't going to let the pope boss them around or they had more important things to worry about.
----------“Women desire six things: They want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous, obedient to wife, and lively in bed.” -- Geoffrey Chaucer
“There's no workman, whatsoever he be, That may both work well and hastily.” -- Geoffrey Chaucer
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Nov 5, 2009 - 15 43
I am afraid that Miss Purl is wrong - leap years had existed for centuries before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar - if not, English calendars would have been 'out' by far more than eleven days
Leap years were a part of the Julian calendar, and used by the Roman and then the European world from 45BC!
The Gregorian calendar adjusted the slight error that arose because a year is not precisely 365.25 days long. Since its introduction leap years are every four years except when the date has two zeros - 1800, 1900, and 2100; but there is a leap year when it has three zeros - as in 2000 [Edit: sorry. The actual criteria are that if the year is divisible by 100, it is not a leap year, unless it is divisible by 400. Effectively, so far this has the same effect, with 2000 being the first year affected by the second half of the change. But it means that 2400 will be a leap year, as will 2800, but not 3000.... I must remember that when the time comes round.]
Edit: 29 February 1300 was a Monday!
----------2005: The Cheese Gate Guard
2006: The Heron's Bridge
2007: Fair Warning
2009: Valley of Thorns