Dear All, A Happy Leap Year Day to everyone. Should any reader be unfamiliar with my four-yearly greeting, please look at the sundial list archive for Wed Feb 24 09:11:48 CET 2016 with the Thread Name "Happy Leap Year Day to everyone".
I was delighted, in 2012, to note that not a single subscriber queried why I had sent out my greeting on 24 February. By contrast, a handful asked questions in 2016. The clue is in the subject line. In this Bisextile Year, the sixth day before the Calends of March is double-length; today is the intercalary half of the double length day. If you come across a sundial made as a tribute to S. Matthias (he was the so-called 13th apostle who was an emergency appointment after Judas, er, absented himself) you should note that his saint's day is moved from today, 24 February, to tomorrow in Leap Years. [For completeness, the Roman Catholic Church relatively recently shifted the date to 14 May because they noticed that 24/25 February sometimes fell in Lent and did not like the idea of celebration in Lent. Well Lent doesn't start for another two days so there is no excuse for such a shift this year!] Very few sundials recognise Leap Years though the scales on some Pilkington and Gibbs Heliochronometers include an extra quarter-length day for February but not in the right place! Frank Frank H. King Cambridge, U.K.
--------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
