this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
380 points (97.0% liked)
Asklemmy
44174 readers
1584 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Don't know if it's bizarre but I was shocked when I found out I'd been lied to my whole life... a leap year isn't every 4 years.
So leap years happen when the year is divisible by 4, but not when the year is divisible by 100 but then they do again when the year is divisible by 400.
So the year 2000 is a perfect example of the exception to the exception. Divisible by 100 so no leap year, but divisible by 400 so leap year back on..
It's amazing that they calculated it down to that detail in the 1700s. Before that they were just a hares breath off for 1000 years (Julian calender -> Gregorian calender). It became a real issue for the church that the start of spring didn't align with the calendar anymore, and they needed to know exactly when Easter was to be held.
It why George Washington is credited with 2 birthdays, depends on which calender you're going by. I think Russia was the last major country to adopt it.
But the earth is flat and pyramids=aliens. Uh huh. Yup.
FYI it's "hair's breadth"
Y'know, I stopped on it when I was typing and thought to double check, but I figured if I wrote it out intentionally wrong I'd get corrected.
I do appreciate it, tho, no joke. Thank you
No one (!) alive today experienced a year divisible by 4 that was not a leap year. The oldest living person was born in 1907.
Also when the leap years were introduced, the priests (who were to take care of the calendar) didn't understand what dis "every four years" mean, and used to put a leap year every three years.
But basic math means that those are the exact same thing. Divisible by 4 means multiples of 4 means every 4 years, right? It seems more likely that they "happen when the year is divisible by 4" came about after they said "let's do it every four years, but we have to phrase it more officially when we write it down."
Not really. 1896 was a leap year, but 1900 was not.
The leap year after 2096 will be 2104.
Edit: an interesting way to put this is, 2000 was the only year in 4 centuries where the year starting the century was a leap year. Next such occurrence will be in 2400
You haven't read the other rules