2008 Woodie Awards
Added day included this year to keep calendar accurate
Ben Fetherston
Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: News
This year, because of an added day, the month of February has five Fridays. It started on a Friday and ends on a Friday.
Feb. 29 is the day that is given the title of Leap Day. An extra day is added to February to form what is know as the leap year.
The leap year consists of 366 days with 29 days in February as opposed to the normal 28 days. This is done in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the Earth's motion around the sun, the orbit.
In the Gregorian calendar, the calendar
used by most modern countries, there are three rules used to determine which years will be leap years. Every year whose number (for example, (2004) that can be divided by 4 is a leap year. But, every year whose number is evenly divisible by 100 is not a leap year. The exception: if the year is divisible by 100, but also by 400, it is a leap year. This means that 1800, 1900, 2100, and 2200 are not leap years while the years 2000 and 2400 are leap years.
Adding an extra day to the calendar
every four years compensates for the fact that a solar year is almost 6 hours longer than 365 days.
Some see this event as a cause for celebration. Birthdays on this day are special, for example, because at the age of 20 years, an individual is often facetiously considered to be only 5 years old, based on the concept that age advances on a specific day due to birthdays commemorating the completion of a year since a person was born.
The Gregorian calendar was designed
to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21 so that the date of Easter would remain consistent with respect to the vernal equinox.
Between 1904 and 2096, leap years with the same day of the week for each date will occur every 28 years, which means that the last time that February had 5 Fridays was in 1980, and the next time will be in 2036.
Feb. 29 is the day that is given the title of Leap Day. An extra day is added to February to form what is know as the leap year.
The leap year consists of 366 days with 29 days in February as opposed to the normal 28 days. This is done in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the Earth's motion around the sun, the orbit.
In the Gregorian calendar, the calendar
used by most modern countries, there are three rules used to determine which years will be leap years. Every year whose number (for example, (2004) that can be divided by 4 is a leap year. But, every year whose number is evenly divisible by 100 is not a leap year. The exception: if the year is divisible by 100, but also by 400, it is a leap year. This means that 1800, 1900, 2100, and 2200 are not leap years while the years 2000 and 2400 are leap years.
Adding an extra day to the calendar
every four years compensates for the fact that a solar year is almost 6 hours longer than 365 days.
Some see this event as a cause for celebration. Birthdays on this day are special, for example, because at the age of 20 years, an individual is often facetiously considered to be only 5 years old, based on the concept that age advances on a specific day due to birthdays commemorating the completion of a year since a person was born.
The Gregorian calendar was designed
to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21 so that the date of Easter would remain consistent with respect to the vernal equinox.
Between 1904 and 2096, leap years with the same day of the week for each date will occur every 28 years, which means that the last time that February had 5 Fridays was in 1980, and the next time will be in 2036.
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