What is a leap year
A leap year is one in which there are not 365 days, but 366. An “extra” day is added to the shortest month, so that every fourth year we get February 29.
There is nothing mystical about this. It’s just that the Earth revolves around the Sun at a speed that is inconvenient for people and does not have time to turn around in 365 days. It takes her 365 days and approximately 6 hours. So an additional day every four years is needed to return to the basic calculation settings. If this had not happened, then over tens and hundreds of years all our seasons would have shifted relative to the months. But a little trick from February 29 allows you to avoid this.
Although here everything is not so simple. Not every fourth year is a leap year. If it is downloaded at 00, then it has 365 days. True, every fourth such year still has February 29th. That is, the 1700th, 1800th, 1900th are not leap years, and the 1600th and 2000th are leap years. So acceptedso that the days of the equinox do not move anywhere particularly from their dates.
But for those who have not studied astronomy, the world is full of magic, so leap year is given additional meanings and something bad is expected from it. And in order to minimize the risk of this bad thing, just in case, it’s better not to do anything important this year.
Figure out 🧐
What not to do on a leap year
Signs may differ from area to area and from family to family, so you may find a lot of conflicting information. But on average, the bans will look like this.
- Get engaged and get married. Sending matchmakers during a leap year is a bad omen. In this case, there is a risk that the couple will quarrel before the wedding. But breaking up before marriage is not so bad. It is much worse if the relationship after the wedding is unbearable, and the marriage itself does not last long. But this is exactly what folk wisdom promises us if we get married during a leap year. However, in Ireland it was on February 29 that a woman could propose to a man, so this superstition obviously did not exist in all cultures.
- Do makeovers. It won’t last long. Maybe the wallpaper will fall off, maybe the faucet will rust.
- Move.
- Buy new housing.
- Build a house. Although construction is usually a process of several years. Perhaps it’s worth taking a break during the leap year. (Spoiler: no.)
- Plan and give birth to children.
- To go on a trip.
In short, almost nothing significant can be done. You can lie on the sofa here. Although, who knows, suddenly his legs will break and there is a risk of getting a bump.
Why a leap year is considered bad – and completely in vain
There are different assumptions why it is customary to expect trouble from a leap year. Perhaps the fact is that February in the Roman Empire was considered month of the dead. And this is clearly not the month that you want to lengthen. Maybe it’s about Saint Kasyan, whom the Slavs honored according to the old style on February 29 and who was endowed with destructive power: “Kasyan looks at the grass – the grass withers, at the cattle – the cattle dies, at the tree – the tree dries up.”
And most likely, the leap year simply triggered people, like everything unusual. A person experiences about 15–20 leap years in his entire life, and only if he’s lucky. You may not get used to it.
Moreover, mysticism and superstition often defy logic. Let’s take, for example, the sign that returning is not good. Not everyone will even remember where they first heard it. It’s just that such statements are absorbed in childhood as an axiom and are no longer verified by us. On the contrary, we are looking for confirmation of them. He came back to see if he had turned off the iron, and then twisted his ankle. Of course, this is because the signs work, and not because of uncomfortable shoes. At the same time, we simply write off failures that happened on other days as something else and do not attach such importance to them.
Same with leap years. Many of us have been convinced since childhood that he is unhappy.
– What a hard year!
Everyone fell silent. And Zinochka said, as always, out of place:
– Do you know why? Because it’s a leap year. The next one will be happy, you’ll see!
The next one was one thousand nine hundred and forty-one.
Boris Vasiliev
Excerpt from the book “Tomorrow there was a war”
And there is plenty of evidence for this speculation.
- 2020 — the coronavirus pandemic began (although here’s the inconvenient truth: the first cases were identified in December 2019); a Boeing 737-800 passenger plane was shot down in Iran; Taal Volcano erupted in the Philippines, and a powerful earthquake and avalanche occurred in Turkey; In St. Petersburg, the roof of the Sports and Concert Complex collapsed. And we only got to February 5th.
- 2016 — North Korea announced a successful test of a hydrogen bomb; in the capital of Burkina Faso, a terrorist attack killed 25 people; WHO declares Zika virus outbreak; explosions occurred at Brussels airport and the Brussels metro; There were earthquakes in Japan, Ecuador, and Italy.
- year 2012 — a cruise ship crashed off the coast of Italy, a ferry crashed off the coast of Papua New Guinea, and a train in Argentina; The asteroid Eros passed at a distance of approximately 26.8 million kilometers from Earth.
There is no doubt that leap years are terrible and disgusting. But let’s take, say, 2017. What do we have here? An attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, a double terrorist attack in Kabul, a terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg metro, four earthquakes in Italy, several planes and helicopters crashed, and more. It seems that 2017 successfully pretended to be a leap year. Or should we admit that the troubles are not due to an extra day?
It’s all about how our brain works. If we expect something bad (and good, too, by the way), then we will pay attention to it and look for a connection between the sign and what is happening. Moreover, sometimes it even changes our behavior: we begin to act in such a way that bad things become almost inevitable. This phenomenon even has a name – a self-fulfilling prophecy. Its essence is that they themselves came up with troubles, got themselves into them (but, again, this also works for good!).
However, we cannot control everything. Sometimes bad things just happen.
They can be dishonest, unjust, monstrous, affecting not only villains, but also good people. It hurts to realize that the world is unfair, but there is nothing you can do about it.
So sometimes we ourselves are to blame for troubles, sometimes it’s someone specific, and sometimes it’s no one’s fault at all. But an extra day in February definitely has nothing to do with it.
Getting married in a leap year is no more dangerous than in any other: statistics here it’s still not on the side of the couple getting married. But numbers don’t mean anything when it comes to a particular couple, because it depends only on these two people how their relationship will turn out.
Buying a home is a quest any year. Therefore, you need to be a bore, attentive to every squiggle in the contract and to all the information about the house.
And so with all other prohibitions.
Improve your critical thinking 🧐