Re: Ponte Alto Baronial Birthday

[Douglas Zimmerman <kdz@toad.template.com>]

>> > > The second one will be in 2000. 2000 is also a leap year.
>> > > 
>> > > Corwyn
>> > > 
>> > ***bzzzt***  Sorry, but thank you for playing.  The year 2000
>> > is not a leap year.  Every now and then they have to skip one
>> > to get things back on track.  (Anyone want to better explain it?)
>> 
>> Leap years occur in all years divisible by four EXCEPT when the year ends 
>> in a double zero.  The year is not exactly 365 days and 6 hours long; it 
>> is slightly less, so we need a leap day slightly less often.  (There is 
>> also a leap second occasionally, when needed.)
>> 
>> Carole
>
>   Now the version of the story that I heard was that century years evenly
>divisible by _400_ _were_ leap years (1700, 1800, and 1900 were not, 2000
>will be).  If I'm wrong, blame it on Old-Timer's Disease.  :-)

This is correct.  The full rules for gregorian are:
   1. Normally, any year evenly divisible by 4 IS a leap year, EXCEPT
   2. Any year ending with 00 is normally NOT a leap year, EXCEPT
   3. Any year evenly divisible by 400 IS a leap year

This will keep things accurate for quite a few more millenia.

The year 2000 will be the first time that rule 3 has ever been applied,
so people do tend to forget it.  The upshot is:

   The year 2000 IS a leap year.

For independent verification, those of you on unix systems can do
'cal 2000' to see the calendar for the year 2000.  Compare it 'cal 1900'.

And for real kicks, try 'cal 1752' and look at September, which is when
the Gregorian calendar was adopted by England.  'cal' is very persnickety
about applying the Gregorian calendar correctly.

		-- Galen Woodwalker