Leaping Back
The idea of a leap year, adding a day to the calendar every 4 years, was first introduced by Julius Caesar in the Julian calendar, but it would prove to be slightly inaccurate. The inaccuracy was corrected when the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582. Although not exactly correct, the Gregorian calendar, a solar calendar, is off by only 1 day every 3,236 years. I don’t think any of us will ever notice.
According to the Gregorian calendar, three criteria must be taken into account to identify leap years:
1. The year must be evenly divisible by 4;
2. If the year can also be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year;
Unless…
3. The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.1
The years 1600, 2000 and 2400 meet the criteria for rule 3. However, e.g. 1700, 1800 and 1900 do not.
My 2nd great-grandparents, Francois and Tharsile (Hus Lemoine) Vadnais were married on the one day that is added to the calendar in a leap year, February 29; the year was 1848.2 If we count their anniversary as only occurring on February 29th, then their 1st wedding anniversary did not happen until February 29, 1852 and so on. That means that anniversaries would have only happened in 1852, 1856, 1860, 1864, 1868, 1872, 1876, 1880, 1884, 1888, 1892 and 1896. Although they were both alive in 1900, it was not a leap year (according to rule 2). Neither would live until 1904, the next leap year. Even though their actual wedding day only occurred 12 times, so in a sense they only had 12 wedding anniversaries, in reality they were married for 53 years.
I currently know of one other example, my 8th great-grandmother Genevieve Lafond on the Vadnais side of the family. She was born on February 29, 1652. If only her birth day is counted, she celebrated 21 of those. She actually lived to be 87 years old.
Thanks for visiting, come back soon,
Cindy
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