Leap Year
Science and Superstition

TO LAYMEN, LEAP year is nothing but a year in which February has an additional day. To men of science, leap year is something which involves mathematics, physics, and astronomy. But there is also a superstitious side to this occurrence.

A Necessary Event
In a technical term, leap years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth's revolutions around the sun. The vernal or spring equinox (which falls on March 21) is the time when the sun is directly above the Earth's equator (making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth), moving from the southern to the northern hemisphere. The mean time between two successive vernal equinoxes is called a tropical year — also known as a solar year — and is about 365.242199 days long.
        Using a calendar having a 365-day year would result in a loss of five hours, 48 minutes, and 45.994 seconds per year, as compared to the solar year. After 100 years, this calendar would be more than 24 days ahead of the season, which for many purposes, such as agricultural management and maritime navigation, is not desirable or accurate. The objective in the incorporation of leap years is to align the calendar with the seasons and to make any difference as insignificant as possible.
        By adding a leap year approximately every fourth year, the difference between the calendar and the seasons is reduced significantly, and the calendar will align with the seasons much more accurately. There is, however, no such thing as a perfect calendar. All the calendars that have been invented since ancient times are either off by seconds, minutes, hours, or even days in comparison to the length of the solar year. To make a calendar more accurate, new leap year rules have to be introduced, complicating the calculation of the calendar even more.

Evolution
In ancient times, the calendar used was lunar in nature, having 12 months of 29 or 30 days every year. To align the calendar with the seasons, a 13th month was inserted as a 'leap month' every two or three years. Many countries, especially in Asia, still use such calendars. This was followed by the lunisolar calendar of 365 days.
        In 238 B.C., King Ptolemy III of Egypt introduced a calendar with every fourth year earmarked as a 'leap year.' This was a similar calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C., through his astronomer Sosigenes, to correct the existing off-seasoned Roman calendar. To realign the calendar with the seasons, Caesar ruled that the year 46 B.C. should have 445 days.
        The Julian calendar, like the Ptolemy calendar, was still inadequate, as it is about 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than solar year, and it was off season by one day every 128 years and 86 days. By the year 1580, the accumulated error of the Julian calendar caused the spring equinox to fall on March 11, or 10 days earlier than it should.
        So in 1582, on the advice of astronomers, Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585) corrected the difference between season and calendar by ordering 10 days dropped from October 15, 1582. This procedure restored the next vernal equinox to its proper date. To correct the Julian calendar's errors regularly, the pope decreed
that February would have an extra day in century years that could be divided by 400, such as 1600 and 2000, but not in others, such as 1700, 1800, and 1900. This is the calendar in use today in most part of the world.
        Although the Gregorian calendar is accurate in its computation and incorporation of leap year,
it still needs some modification in about 3,240 years.

Indecent Proposal
In most societies today, it is okay for a woman to propose marriage to a man. But during the early times, when the rules of courtship were stricter, it is customary that women must wait to be proposed to. But whenever leap year swings by, women buck tradition and declare their love. They were allowed to pop the marital question every 29th of February, which of course happens only every four years.
        This belief was of mixed pagan and Christian origin. Legend has it that a would-be saint named Bridget complained to another would-be saint, Patrick, about women having to wait for so long for a man to propose marriage. So Patrick said the yearning ladies could propose on this one day in February during the leap year.
        According to old English law, February 29th was ignored and had no legal status. Folks assumed that traditions would also have no status on that day. It was also reasoned that since the leap year day existed to fix a problem in the calendar, it could also be used to fix an old and unjust custom that only let men propose marriage.
        The first documentation of this practice dates back to 1288, when Scotland supposedly passed a law that allowed women to propose marriage to the man of their choice in that year. Tradition states they also made it into a law that any man who declined a proposal in a leap year must pay a fine. The fine could range from a kiss to payment for a silk dress or a pair of gloves.
        In the Philippines, the so-called pikot marriage, most probably, was the offshoot of this tradition. Filipino men, during the 19th and 20th century, tried earnestly to avoid any contact with women on February 29. During the entirety of the leap year, men were evidently aloof, especially those who didn’t want to be tied down.
        On the other hand, Greek superstition dictates that couples will encounter bad luck if they marry
during a leap year. Apparently, one in five engaged couples in Greece would avoid planning their wedding during a leap year.

Famous Leap-ers and More
February 29, 2012 will fall on a Wednesday. Notice that there will be five Wednesdays on this particular leap month. The next time it will happen is on 2412. This is because the Gregorian calendar repeats the same weekdays every 400-year cycle.
        In most jurisdictions, people born on February 29 will have their legal birthdays on February 28 of regular years. This means that a person born on February 29, 2012 will have reached his legal age of 18 on February 28, 2030.
        Among notable people born on the 29th of February are Roman Basa (1848), the second president
of the Katipunan, and the late Juan Marasigan Feleo (1948), better known as the actor Johnny Delgado.
        In the international scene, American statistician Herman Hollerith (1860), American singer-actress Dinah Shore (1916), Russian operatic bass Ivan Petrov (1920), El Salvador president Carlos Humberto Romero (1924), and Japanese novelist Jiro Akagawa (1948) are among the leap day people. The Guinness Book record holder for the longest personal name, Wolfe+585 (letters), was also born on February 29 in 1904.
        The only notable person known to have both been born and died on February 29 was James Wilson (1812-1880), the Premier of Tasmania. - Ernee Lawagan
 

On This Day...

49 B.C. Julius Caesar proclaimed the First Leap Day.

1288 It became legal in Scotland for a woman to propose marriage to a man.

1848 Roman Basa, second president of the Katipunan, was born.

1936 Jose P. Laurel became Associate Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court.

1940 Former De La Salle president and Philippine Department of Education Secretary Brother Andrew Gonzalez was born.

1944 World War II: The Admiralty Islands were invaded in Operation Brewer led by American General Douglas MacArthur.

1948 Filipino actor Johnny Delgado was born.

1952 Filipino fashion designer Cliff Candelaria was born.

1956 Elpidio Rivera Quirino died of a heart attack after his term as a President of the Republic of the Philippines. He was 65 years old.

1968 The United States of America performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.

2008 A rally was held in the Makati City central business district to protest corruption over the alleged Philippine National Broadband Network controversy a.k.a. NBN/ZTE deal and call for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The rally’s attendees included former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Joseph Estrada.