Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1890 — Why 1900 Is Not a Leap Year. [ARTICLE]

Why 1900 Is Not a Leap Year.

The following explanation will show you why the leap year 1900 will not be counted among leap years: The year is 365 days 5 hours and 48 minutes long; 11 minutes are taken every] year to make the year 365] days long, and every fourth year we have an extra day. This was Julius Caesar’s arrangement You may ask: “Where do these 11 minutes come from?" They come from the future, and are paid by omitting leap year every 100 years. Bui if leap year is omitted regularly every 100 years, in the course of 400 years it is found that the 11 minutes taken each year will not only have been paid back, but that a whole day will have been given up. So Pope Gregory XIII., who improved on -Caesar’s calendar in 1582, aecreeu that every centurial year divisible by four should be a leap year after all. So we borrow 11 minutes each year, more than paying our borrowings back by omitting three leap years in three centurial years, and square matters by having a leap year in the fourth centurial year. Pope Gregory’s arrangement is so exact * and the borrowing and paying back balanced so nicely that we borrow more than we pay back to the extent of only one day in 3;866 years.