PORCH PONDERINGS

Leap Year

So far I've had four articles published in the local paper. It's a start. I am working on another for an event this Saturday.

I also thought of writing one for Leap Year, since the paper is out once a week, and this next week it comes out around February 29th.

Perhaps I could bring in some history, some culture, some tidbits people aren't aware of. Such as, the calendar we use and why. Maybe touch on the different calendars tossed about throughout the ages.

The French tried a 10 day calendar for some years. Here's the skinny from Wikipedia:
The French Republican calendar (French: calendrier républicain français), also commonly called the French Revolutionary calendar (calendrier révolutionnaire français), was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871, and meant to replace the Gregorian calendar.[1]
The revolutionary system was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and it was part of a larger attempt at decimalisation in France (which also included decimal time of day, decimalisation of currency, and metrication). It was used in government records in France and other areas under French rule, including Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Malta, and Italy.

Since we aren't on that system here in the US, or elsewhere, we follow the Gregorian calendar of 7 days.

I found this about Leap Year:
The rule for leap years is:
Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the year 2000 is.
— United States Naval Observatory[2]

Leap year has to do with the sun and its movements. If you are geeky, check this out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year#/media/File:Gregoriancalendarleap_solsti...