Story #4

   The spring equinox (solstice) is fast approaching. It falls on March 20th this year but those of us over 30 may recall a time when the first day of spring fell on the 21st. The insertion of an extra day (Feb 29th) this year will keep that equinox on the 20th and even allow it to slip back to the 19th later in this century.

   What you probably know is this is a leap year and that the years 2000 and 2004 were also but did you know the year’s 1700,1800 and 1900 were not. How and why all this leaping works is a tricky but fascinating bit of calendar manipulation history that dates back to the late 1500’s.

   It involves a Pope, Julius Caesar, some solstices badly out of whack and the unprecedented disappearance of 11 whole days.

   A little bit of pre-Gregorian calendar history is probably in order at this point to lead you into how our calendar works today.

   Back as far as 2000 years ago stone alignments were used to determine the length of the solar year by marking the progress of the sun along the horizon.

   The solar or “tropical” year is about 365.2422 mean solar days so the seasons began on about the same dates each year as the Gregorian. Ancient calendars depended on observational rules. The earliest was probably based on lunar observations using the “synodic” month, the interval from new moon to new moon, about 29.53 days. Hence calendar months contained 29 or 30 days but 12 lunar months which total 354.36 days make a lunar year that is 11 days shorter that a tropical or solar year.

   Lunar years didn’t work, agriculturally speaking, so lunar/solar calendars were formed by adding an additional “leap” month when the observation of crops made it seem necessary.

   Apparently there were hundreds of calendars with variations formed at various times in various areas like Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, India and China.

   Imagine a modern day cross-country traveler today trying to figure out what day it was back then.

   Oh and let’s not forget the Maya whose calendar divided the year into 18 -20 day months with a five day period at the end.

   That’s just about enough time to hold “Rum Runner Days” but my bet is that the Maya did allot more bizarre things back then during those five special days than we do during our July bash.

   Romans during the late republic used some of these lunar/solar variations. These calendars were apparently more influenced by political considerations than observation. Julius Caesar recognized a need for a more stable, predictable calendar and with the help of the peripatetic and astronomer “Sosigenes”, formed one.

   The Peripatetics were members of a school of philosophy in ancient Greece. Their teachings derived from their founder, the Greek philosopher Aristotle and Peripatetic is a name given to his followers.

   As an adjective, “peripatetic” is often used to mean itinerant, wandering, meandering, or walking about. (Kind of like the calendar had been doing back then) I guess the calendar was out by several months back then what with all the political manipulations so the year 46 BC was given 445 days to compensate and every common year after that was to have 365 days. Man, that 445-day year must have had those Romans wondering if the year 46 BC would ever end! 45 BC was designated a “leap” year during which the month of February was extended by one day.

   Unfortunately the “Julian” leap year rule created 3 leap years too many every 385 years (confused yet?) So the equinoxes and solstices kept drifting away from their assigned calendar dates. That’s when the church decided to get involved as the date of the spring equinox determines that of Easter. Pope Gregory Xlll, with the help of astronomer “Christopher Clavius” introduced the “Gregorian” calendar. The adjustment was made thusly: Thursday October 4, 1582 AD (Julian) was followed by October 15, 1582 (Gregorian). 11 days, poof gone. Don’t try and tell me Popes aren’t powerful! Leap years were to occur in years exactly divisible by four, except (good grief) those years that end in “00” must be exactly divisible by 400 to be leap years.

   Thus 1600 and 2000 are leap years but 1700,1800 and 1900 are not. The Gregorian calendar allows equinoxes to drift behind as each century progresses then pushes them ahead a little too much by the omitted leap year at most centuries end.

   There have been many proposals made for calendar improvements (God forbid!). They go under the names of “universal”, “perpetual” and “fixed” calendars, the later having 13 equal months of 28 days. They might be simpler statistically but boy do they ever screw up things like religious holidays.

   During the French revolution a “reformed” calendar void of religious connections was adopted and took effect on September 22, 1792, the day the Republic was proclaimed. It had a 10-day week and 12 months of 30 days with the days left at years’ end given over to vacations and celebrations.

   Try working a 10-day week and see if you feel like celebrating after! Napoleon 1 put an end to that foolishness on January 1, 1806 and returned to the Gregorian system.

   All this Gregorian manipulation came about because of an earth year that is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds long. If our year was 11 minutes longer a leap year every fourth year would fix this problem just right.

   Incidentally, if we hadn’t fixed this out of sync problem back then in 1582 Christmas would be rolling around in August.

   I know of a woman leaper who turned 25 (actually 100) this year. She was 12 when her son turned 12! One in every 1,506 people (leapers) will hit puberty by the age of 4, but won’t be able to vote until they are in there 70’s. People born on leap day suffer more than most know. Retirees charged and   arrested for underaged drinking Mothers and fathers with children legally older than they are Middle-aged men stuck with Kiddie Meals because they are under the age requirement Leapers suffer from Advanced Age Confusion Disorder (AACD) and become social outcasts The final word on leap year for you bachelors out there is this: “Guys, get married on February 29th, you’ll save a bundle on wedding anniversary gifts.”

John Kinnear's Looking Back will publish a new  article every other week.