Check your clocks and calendars…it’s a leap year and that means March will have to wait a day.
It’s fairly common knowledge that every four years, we add an extra day to the month of February to help account for the fact that the Earth’s orbit around the Sun actually takes slightly more than 365 days. Less commonly know, however, is that century years (1900, 2000, 2100, for example) only receive a leap day if the year is evenly divisible by 400. So the year 2000 (2000÷400=5) had an extra day, but the year 2100 (2100÷400=5.25) will not. This is because the actual length of the year is close to 365.242 days, which would create three too many days added over a 400-year period.
If it all seems too technical, you might be interested to know that leap years have long been associated with a variety of superstitions and traditions. A popular old wives’ tale makes it proper on a leap day for a woman to propose marriage to her man and makes him beholden to accept the proposal. Some ancient cultures perceived leap days to be harbingers of bad luck, leading governments to ignore them altogether at times.
Signs don’t point to the federal government skipping this year’s leap day, and most of us aren’t yet nervous about 2100, so unless you have designs on proposing tomorrow, leap day 2008 will probably go off without a hitch. Unless your time/date clock doesn’t track years and thinks it’s March 1…
[flickr photo by Today is a good day]
African-American Inventor, Master Mechanic, and Engineer Elijah McCoy worked as a train fireman and oilman for the Michigan Central Railroad. He created a device that allowed an engine to remain in motion as the device regulated oil flow into machine parts that needed constant lubrication. Patented in 1872, this invention was a revolution for the steam engine. It was in such demand that railroad men ordering the part insisted that they receive Elijah McCoy’s invention and not an inferior substitute. It its said that buyers began asking for “the real McCoy,” popularizing the expression, which eventually came to refer to anything of undisputed quality that is neither imitation nor substitute.
