Leap Day, v. 2012 Traditional Cache
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This cache is hidden in recognition of Leap Day. The unique container is appropriate for the cache name and should be easy to find. Cache container will hold Geocoins and small Travel Bugs. Camo Container can hold larger items in zip lock bag.
A Leap Year, or Intercalary Year, is a year containing one additional day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or solar year (the length of time it takes the earth to complete its orbit about the sun). Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, a calendar that had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. Thus, by occasionally inserting an additional day into the year, the drift can be corrected.
The Gregorian calendar is the current standard calendar in most of the world. The Gregorian calendar was designed to keep the Vernal (spring) Equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter (celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the full moon that falls on or after March 21) remains correct with respect to the Vernal Equinox. An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth’s axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator. Leap Years were first introduced by Julius Caesar in the Roman Empire over 2000 years ago. The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian. In the Gregorian calendar there are 365 days during Common Years and 366 days during Leap Years. The extra day is added at the end of February (February 29). Most years that are evenly divisible by 4 are Leap Years. The exceptions are century years which are not evenly divisible by 400. For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800, 1900, were not Leap Years. Likewise, 2100, 2200, 2300 will not be Leap Years. There have been many different calendars in the past with each using different means of synchronization. Some even add extra months to the calendar (a lunisolar calendar).
Adding an extra day to the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a period of 365 days is shorter than a solar year by almost 6 hours (5 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds). The duration of a solar year is actually 365.242374 days long. Without adding a year every 4 years, our calendar would be behind astronomical events by one day every 4 years, or 25 days every 100 years (making summer begin in July instead of June). However, since the difference is slightly less than 0.25 days, if an extra day was added every year the calendar would be ahead of astronomical events by 11 minutes and 14 seconds every year and by one day every 128 years. These corrections bring the calendar and the solar year in harmony and pretty much eliminates those extra 11 minutes and 14 seconds. Now the calendar year and the solar year are off by only about 30 seconds. At that rate, it takes 3,300 years for the calendar year and solar year to diverge by a day.
There have been several folk traditions associated with Leap Day and Leap Year. In the British Isles, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on Leap Years. In some places the tradition was tightened to restricting female proposals to only Leap Day. A similar tradition exists in Denmark. Most of these traditions also include some sort of compensation if a marriage proposal is refused by the man. This compensation has included monetary fines, a kiss, silk gowns, 12 pairs of gloves and fabrics for a skirt. In Greece, marriage in a leap year is considered unlucky. In Scotland, it used to be considered unlucky for someone to be born on Leap Day.
A person born on February 29 may be called a “leapling” of a “leaper”. For legal purposes, legal birthdays depend on how local laws count time intervals. In most situations, March 1 is used as the birthday in a Common Year since it is the day following February 28. There are approximately 187,000 people in the US born on Leap Day.
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