Whoa, A Leap Year!

Whoa! It’s a “leap year!” Almost spilled my coffee! You know what that means, right? You don’t? Well, bear with me then, because this is a leap year, with a “leap day,” “leaplings,” story in there somewhere.

So, first, what is a leap year? Easy and hard to explain.

Easy: It is that year, every four when we add one day to February – so instead of 28 days, that month gets one more, and you get February 29^th. A leap year then contains 366 days, not 365.

Hard: A leap year, unlike an astronomical year – or the time it takes Earth to travel around the sun – is a human creation or rather a human compensation for the fraction of a day lost over time by the fact that an astronomical year is 365 and a quarter days long. So, to even things up, we add one day every four years.

Thus, the calendar created by Julius Ceasar, not coincidentally known as the Julian Calendar, amounts to three years of 365 days followed by one of 366. Meantime, the Gregorian Calendar, a refinement by Pope Gregory XIII, does the same with a slight adjustment for an error in the Julian algorithm.

The Gregorian Calendar, which hit the streets in 1582 and is used by most of the world, is 365 days for each of three years followed by one year of 366 days, but adds a riveting – unforgettable – refinement: The extra day occurs every fourth year, except years “evenly divisible by 100, but not by 400.” Got it?

In this way, humanity keeps track of time’s passage on an annual basis, referencing the sun, moon, and stars, but also acknowledges that not all things come in neat and tidy packages since God is in charge.

Now that we have that settled, what else does this year being a “leap year” mean? Anything wild and wonderful? Well, it means we get an extra day of working, playing, sleeping, praying, worrying, or worrying not that ends in “2024,” and it means anyone born on February 29, 2024, is a “leapling.”

And what do we know about “leaplings?”  A lot. Like what? Well, not one, with a careful nod to entertainers, athletes, and random figures, has ever much changed the course of human history.

What else do we know about what happens on “leap days,” that added day in February, February 29, in recorded history? We know that, for one thing, nothing of importance is recorded on any leap day, which makes the day either terribly unimportant or given the bad stuff on other days, terribly important!

Okay, what else can be said about this being a leap year, leap days, and the rest? Well, according to old Irish tradition, women got to ask men to dance or to propose marriage on a “leap day,” causing havoc in old Ireland, including compensation for refusal in the form of a gown, coat, or “pair of gloves.”

In response to this initial splash of feminism, Irish men – of course, since men controlled everything except the calendar – responded by renaming it “Bachelor’s Day,” a celebration of their prerogatives.

What else? Well, culling the vast annuls of writing, thinking, and both astronomical and more earthly writing on this weighty subject, not much. The main point about leap years and leap days is that you have to remember they happen, pop that day onto the end of February, and know all about it, or not.

Bottom line. Sometimes it is nice to have an added day, something to talk about that is neither controversial nor worrisome, just a day on which you can be glad to be alive, note how calendars work, and if you are a “leapling” celebrate a rare birthday – if not, read a column on leap years, over coffee.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.