Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1911 — An Explanation of Leap Year. [ARTICLE]

An Explanation of Leap Year.

Upon the eye -of another leap year the answer to the question as to why a leap year sometimes comes at eight year intervals instead of the usual four yedr intervals will be of interest to all A-magazine says in its query columiv: “It is'possible that tljjs inquirer is puzzled by remembering tfhat the year 1900 was not a leap year, though its number was, by the comon rule of leap years, divisible by four. The explanation of the discrepency is simple. There was a slight error in the Julian calendar, adopted in 40 B, C. This gave to the year 365)4 days, which yvas 11 minutes too much. The slight excess in calculation, in the course of 15 centuries, had amounted to 10 days; therefore, in 1582, Pope Gregory revised the calendar and changed the date, Oct. 5 of that year to Oct. 15, to eliminate the ten-day error. And to prevent .any similar complication in the future he de--cided that years which Were multiples of 100 should not be leap years unless they were divisible by 400 instead of 4. Thus the year 1600 was a leap year and the intervening centurial years—--1700, 1800 and 1900—did not have the extra,day in February.