Last update - 00:00 29/02/2008
Pen Ultimate / Day in, day out
By Michael Handelzalts
My heart leaps when I behold a rainbow in the sky, but today, it is my - and your - year that leaps. Not necessarily up, but maybe over. Indeed, it is the 29th day of February today, a date that appears in calendars once every four years (almost; see below). Hence, during a year when it is nonexistent, February 29 is "leaped" over. And today is also a Friday, which means the shortest month of the year is ending with a fifth Friday. The next time this will happen will be in 2036.
So today is in effect an addition, a sort of afterthought. But so is the whole month of February itself. The ancient Romans lived according to a year consisting of 10 months; December was originally their 10th and last month. According to Plutarch, writing in the year 75 C.E., it was Numa Pompilius, who reigned in the seventh century B.C.E., who "calculat[ed] the difference between the lunar and the solar year at 11 days, for that the moon completed her anniversary course in 354 days, and the sun in 365, to remedy this incongruity doubled the 11 days, and every other year added an intercalary month, to follow February, consisting of 22 days ... This amendment, however, itself, in course of time, came to need other amendments ... Many will have it, that it was Numa, also, who added the two months of January and February."
It was Julius Caesar who ultimately discovered, in 45 B.C.E., that time was still out of joint. Following both Egyptian astronomers and his own experts, he decreed that that particular year would have 445 days, and from then on each year would have 12 months of 30 or 31 days each, including a short February with an additional day every four years. He also appropriated a month for himself - July (originally Quintilius, the fifth month, which now became the seventh). Augustus, who followed him on the Roman throne, added three more days to the year and named the eighth month (Sextilius, originally the sixth month) after himself: August. The Senate suggested that his successor, Tiberius, name a month after himself, but he was practical enough to refuse the honor by asking: "And what will you do by the time there will be 13 Caesars?"
Almost 1,600 years then passed before those who cared about matters calendrical, and had enough authority, decided that something had to be done to align the solar year (measured according to the number of rotations the sun made around the earth - at least that's what they thought then) with the lunar one (the time it took the moon to orbit the earth 12 times). In 1582 - counting from the year Jesus was born, although his birth was probably a couple of years earlier - Pope Gregorius XIII dropped 10 days from the calendar and decreed that from then on, every four years, February would have 29 days, not 28. The exception to this rule was that centenary years (i.e., 1700, 1800) would not have an extra day. The exception to this exception was that centenary years that are divisible by 400 would have an extra day.
As the pope was Catholic, it took the Protestant countries almost 200 years to follow suit. Russia and Greece came around only in the 20th century. That is why, in the history of the world's calendars, there was a 30th day in February - twice: Once in 1712 in Sweden, when they were trying to rectify errors made by their astronomers, and the second time when leaders of the Soviet Revolution wanted in 1929 to make a switch from the seven-day week to a five-day week and 30-day month. In 1931 they gave up the idea, and anyway, Pravda did not accept the ruling, kept faith with the Gregorian calendar, and there never was an issue dated February 30th in their history.
Jilted ladies leaping
An Irish tradition dating back to the 13th century stipulated that women were allowed to propose marriage to men only in leap years - specifically, on February 29. A man refusing such a proposal had to make it up to the jilted lady. Nowadays this seems a bit old-fashioned, but if you need an excuse, ladies, because he is not getting the point, today is the day, and you can enlighten him with a piece of calendrical trivia.
The Greek astronomer Meton, who dodged the Athenian draft in the fifth century B.C.E., calculated that 19 lunar years plus 209 days, which amounts to seven months (six of them with 30 days, and one with 29), equals 19 solar years. That is the basis of the calculation of leap years in the Hebrew calendar. In this instance, the year that differs from other run-of-the-mill years is literally called a "pregnant" year, and the secret of impregnating it - adding an extra month, the first month of Adar, seven times within a cycle of 19 years - was formulated some time in the fourth century C.E. This year we are in the middle of the 304th cycle since the creation of the world, and the pregnant Hebrew year and the Gregorian leap year coincide. The next time that will happen will be in 2016, in the Hebrew year of 5776.
This never works out correctly, as the solar year has a bit less than 365-and-one-quarter days (to be precise, it has approximately 365.242149 days), whereas the lunar year has a little more than 354-and-one-third days (precisely, approximately, 354.3734 days). They differ by little less than 11 days (10.8674, to be almost precise). But we valiantly and desperately will persist in showing that while the universe behaves mostly in a maddeningly arbitrary way, there is a method to it. We add a day, subtract a day, make the year a month longer and then a month shorter - but nature (or God, whichever comes first) runs its own course. In 3,000 years' time, we will have an extra day in the year, and this has to be fixed and fit into the calendar, and the sooner the better.
Even the Chinese and the Hindus have their leap years, during which they try to call nature to order. They all leap this way or that - except the Muslims. They count their years from the time Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medina, and have 12 months in their year. The Koran expressly forbids any tinkering with the calendar. The seasons and the holidays shift from year to year by almost 11 days, and the Muslims remain unperturbed. They do not try to achieve the impossible: to find method in the madness. There is a lesson to be gleaned from all this, I guess, and today is just the day to ponder it.