Leap years by list in the 21st century

An extra day in the year, it would seem, should be a great opportunity to do everything that you don’t have time to do in regular 365. But no, something in the public mind has gone wrong: the notoriety of any year that has the misfortune to be considered a leap year always flies ahead of it.

Particularly superstitious people prepare in advance for a stream of troubles, so that, having fallen into it, they have the spiritual strength to resist fate. Not only in the sayings of our grandmothers, but also in posts on the net, you can find a great many tips on how to behave better during a leap year in order to minimize the negative consequences that it will certainly have on life. Let’s list the leap years according to the list in the 21st century, and also tell you where the extra day comes from and what are the origins of the irrational fear of it.

Leap years in the 21st century

Why are years called leap years?

To understand where the extra number comes from in the calendar, it’s worth understanding what a solar (it is also called a tropical) year is. This is the time it takes for the Earth to make one complete revolution around the Sun. This process takes about 365 days 5 hours and 49 minutes. And although a few hours, as it seems at first glance, could be neglected, they don’t do this for one simple reason: in four years, such extra hours add up to almost a full day. That is why we add one day to the calendar – in order to overcome the difference between the calendar and the real time of the Earth’s revolution that has arisen over the past few years.

Julian calendar

The word “leap” itself is of Latin origin. It can be called a free transcription of the phrase “bis sextus”, which translates as “the second sixth.” In ancient Rome, where the calendar appeared thanks to Julius Caesar, some days of the month had special names: the first day of the month – calenda, the fifth or seventh – nona, the thirteenth or fifteenth – ida. February 24 was considered the sixth day before the March calendars. An extra day in the year, added to compensate for the difference between the numbers in the calendar and the time of the Earth’s movement, was placed next to it, calling it “bis sextus” – the second sixth. Later, the date shifted slightly – the year in Ancient Rome began in March, respectively, February was the last, twelfth month. So one more day was added at the very end of the year.

Gregorian calendar

Julius Caesar’s calendar, although a great achievement of mankind, is fundamentally not entirely accurate, and was conducted incorrectly for the first few years. In 45 BC. – the first leap year in history, astronomers calculated a slightly different time of the Earth’s annual turnover – 365 days and 6 hours, this value differs by 11 minutes from the current one. A few minutes of difference add up to a full day in about 128 years.

The discrepancy between calendar and real time was noticed in the 16th century – the vernal equinox, on which the date of Catholic Easter depends in Catholicism, came ten days earlier than the scheduled March 21. Therefore, Pope Gregory the Eighth reformed the Julian calendar, changing the rules for counting leap years:

• if the value of the year can be divided by 4 without a remainder, it is a leap year;
• the rest of the years, the values ​​​​of which are divisible by 100 without a remainder, are non-leap years;
• the rest of the years, the values ​​​​of which are divisible by 400 without a remainder, are leap years.

Gradually, the whole world switched to the Gregorian calendar, one of the last to do so was Our Country, in 1918. However, this chronology is also imperfect, which means that one day new calendars will appear, which will bring new superstitions with them.

When is the next leap year

Such a year is in the yard right now, the next one will come in 2024.

Calculating the “leap year” of the year is quite simple, you can not even resort to the calendar. We now live according to the Gregorian calendar, according to which, every second even year is a leap year.

It is easy to calculate in your mind: the first even year after 2000 is 2002, the second even year is 2004, a leap year; 2006 is common, 2008 is leap year; and so on. An odd year will never be a leap year.

Former leap years: what happened significant

Fears and fears of a leap year are not backed up by anything but the memory of generations. Superstitions arose so long ago that it is not possible to trace their roots. The only thing that can be said for sure is that the Slavs, the Celts, and the Romans were amazingly unanimous in their superstitions. Each nation was waiting for a catch from a year with an unconventional number of days.

In Our Country, on this account, there was a legend about St. Kasyan, who betrayed the Lord and went over to the side of evil. God’s punishment overtook him quickly and was quite cruel – for three years Kasyan in the Underworld was beaten on the head with a hammer, and on the fourth he was released to Earth, where he, embittered, messed with people for a whole year.

Our ancestors, who were wary of leap years, most likely perceived them as some kind of failure in nature, a deviation from the normal and usual state of affairs.

Throughout history, leap years have seen many troubles and disasters. Here is some of them:

• 1204: Fall of Constantinople, collapse of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1232: Beginning of the Spanish Inquisition.
• 1400: An epidemic of black plague rages, from which every third inhabitant of Europe dies.
• 1572: St. Bartholomew’s Night occurs – the massacre of Huguenots in France.
• 1896: Japan’s record-breaking tsunami.
• 1908: the fall of the Tunguska meteorite.
• 1912: The sinking of the Titanic.
• 2020: The global coronavirus pandemic.

However, one should not forget about the great power of coincidences, as well as the fact that such catastrophes as the beginning of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, the September 11 terrorist attack and the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred in non-leap years. That is why it is important not how many days fall in a year, but how we manage them.