The Washington herald., 1907-12-29
1908 A LEAP YEAR
History of Calendar Which Makes Extra
Day Once in -Four Years.

| between November and December. This
gave the Romans year of AS days This
particular year. which was b. G. as, is
known TO history as The Year Of the
Confusion" This wonderful year can
celed all previous errors. and when the
| question of how TO make the succeedin,;
years of equal length. and TO correspond
TO the annual revolution of the earth
around the sun. and Caesars attempts
at its solution brought about the intro
duction of leap year. Caesar did not con-
slider the moon in hfs calculations. but
made months of thirty and thirty-one
days alternately. except February. which
he gave twenty-nine days in ordinary
years and thirty every fourth year
Because OF his strengthening out the
difficulties OF the calendar. and because
he calculated to within a fraction of a
day in each year, Caesar was deemed
worthy Of lasting memorial Therefore
the name of the month Quintilis was
changed to Julius
Augustus Caesar. the successor Of
julius. after some victories by his armies.
had month named for him, too. Ii so
happened, however that the month
named for Augustus had only thirty days.
whereas that named for julius had thirty
one. Augustus did not like this, so he
had an extra day added to August.
Thereafter February had twenty-eight
days in ordinary years. and twenty-nine
in leap year.
Too Many Leap Years.
Since the time of the Caesars. how
ever. it has been found necessary 10 re-
duce the number of leap years II the
dictionary were consulted for the mean
ing of leap year it would probably read
every fourth year" That answer.
though it would have done well in
Caesars time. Is not correct now. be-
cause the arrangements which had then
been arrived at made the year Of the
proper length except only the fraction of
an hour. The year was, on the average.
56o14 days long, whereas the suns revolu-
ton Is eleven minutes and ten seconds
less than that. This slight error might
have been corrected at once by a reduc-
ton In the number Of leap years. But the
error was allowed To grow. so that by
A. ID. 1852. the year in which II was cor
Tected. il amounted 10 ten days In that
year Pope Gregory decreed that the 5th
OF October be the 18th, thus canceling the
error of the past
The correction was not adopted by all
the countries at once. but gave rise 10
what is known as the new style in those
countries which did adopt il. To this Gay
Russia holds by the old style and in some
places in Great Britain the terms are reg
ulated by the old style. Having corrected
tho error Of the past. Pope Gregory en-
deavored 10 prevent its recurrence in the
future.
1900 Not Leap Year.
The error was equivalent to an excess
of about three days in four centuries. so
he decreed that of the last years Of the
century only those which are divisible by
400 are leap years. So that, though 1900.
a multiple of 400 was leap year, 100. !
1909, and 1900 We're not leap years.
The year is now exactly as 1t was after
Gregory had corrected it, Even after this
correction, however. there remains |
slight error. The mistake is so very small |
that II viii amount TO only day in 5000 /
years The error is one of excess. so il Is /
proposed TO make the year A. d. 1000 1
otherwise leap year, a common year.
After that the calculations are so minute 1
that the length of the year viii so exactly /
correspond 10 the earth's revolutions /
around the sun that they will not differ
more than day in ! .O00 centuries.