Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1906-1908, 1908-02-14
COMES BUT ONCE
IN EIGHT YEARS
PECULIAR SITUATION CON-
FRONTS THOSE BORN FEB. 20.
Fond du Lac Gentleman Gives
Reason For the Condition
Birthday Usually Comes But
Once in Four Yedrs-AuthOr is
in the List Spoken of.

uC 1OllOWIiS "ItlICL ny
Glaze of Fond du Lac and publish ed
in q recent issue Of the Commonwealth
Of that city, will be read with interest
by many of the readers Of The Leader,
as it tells of the peculiar fact that
his birthday comes but once in eight
years and also tells of the peculiar
situation that confronts those born On
February %. He points out the rea
son for the condition in the following {:
Those people born on Feb. 20, or
Leap year, this year. have peculiar
anniversary experience. Most people
have birthday anniversar; every
year, but those born Feb. 20 can lay
claim to a legitimate anniversary but
once in four years, but the peculiar
situation this year is that they have
had to wait eight years. The reason
for this will b. gwen later. Among
those who belong in this list ia A. 7.
Glaze, who would be very glad to have
the leap year people of Fond du Lac
and vicinity. send him postal card
with their names and address. In the
days of Abraham on the plains of
Judea and of Arabia, as the center of
astroln omical science dates were
changed to suit the ideas uf the Jews.
But when Christianity came, all this
had to be changed, as the Christian
had Easter, The great festival of the
Christian year, and as the date for
the coming of Easter was dependant
upon the monn's phases following
the vernal or spring equinox, it be-
came necessary to revise the calendar.
In the year 40 of the Christian era as
it had already drifted out of place.
so that the spring equinox came on
March &c, instead of the 81, where
it properly belongs. The Jews were
ridiculing the Christians because it
made it possible for Easter to come
one week too late and the regulations
of Lent were not properly observed.
To correct the calendar WAS in this
sense necessity. The reignnig pope
took immediate action by calling a
council of the most eminent astron-
omers, mathematicians and theologIans
of that day, but they were unable
to agree upon an arrangement which
would always bring the vernai equinox
on March Il. Since that time until
the present day the making of ar
absolutely correct calendar although
constantly agitated. has never succeed
ed.
''In the twelfth century the error
amounted to thirteen days. Several
times councils have been called, but
their work was not wholly successful.
All of this trouble has been occasioneC
by the fact that the position of the
earth in space is such that the equator
is not parallel to the elliptic or track
of the earth's axlal orbits but stands
at an angle of 23a degrees. This
makes the astronomical year consist
of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 4e
seconds, instead of an even 365 days.
The hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds
of time amounts to within a few
seconds OF one day in four years,
which is compensated for by giving
February one day more. The few
seconds discrepancy is compensated
for by dropping out one of the Febru-
sry days every two hundred years,
and this is the anniversary which the
leap year people are deprived Of at
this time and have taken an eight
year jump instead of four. No per-
son now living has seen one of these
eight year intervals until now, as the
last was at the beginning of the
seventeenth century and no one now
living will see another, as it does not
come until 2100. 1t is provided that
those skips shall be in the odd number
centuries, and this being the nine
teenth century. We get it at this time.
This is probably the nearest approach
to correct calendar that it. is posi-
BILE to get. The most notable of the
efforts to arrange this matter came
in 1913, in a council called by the
pope in France, when the present
arrangement was made. but it was
not generally adopted until nearly one
hundred years later. and those coun-
tries which adhere to the Greek church,
notably Russia and Greece, still use
/ l. Il Ia.