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From: oep@gi.uio.no (Oeyvind Pedersen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Leap year function
Message-ID: <1991Jun6.083418.9559@ulrik.uio.no>
Date: 6 Jun 91 08:34:18 GMT
References: <4183@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> <a4Dy31w164w@allanon.UUCP> <baillie.676098437@mullauna>
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In article <baillie.676098437@mullauna>, baillie@mullauna.cs.mu.OZ.AU
(Stephen Baillie) writes:
 
> It was because of a discrepancy between the number of days in a year
in the
> old (Julian?) Calendar, ie one without leap years, and the actual
passage
> of the earth around the sun (did I get that the right way around? ;->
)
> 
> The year was out of sync with the sun by 11 days, so at the same time
as
> introducing leap years they cut a few days to make things line up
again.
> Caused quite a stir among the superstitious peasants who thought they
> were losing a few days out of their lives!
> 
> I think that pre-1722 there were no leap years, so your program may
try to
> compensate for this too.

The Julian calendar HAD leap years.  The problem was that it had too
many - 25 in each century,
while the Gregorian calendar has 24.25, that is 24 in three centuries
and 25 in the fourth.
That makes an average year 365.2425 days long instead of 365.25, while
the "real" year, i.e
the time the earth uses in one lap is about 365.2422 days.

Oeyvind.