Posted on Dec 27, 2015
Is it a coincidence that Presidential elections occur on leap years?
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Next year is a leap year which alos means it is a Presidential election year. I had taken it for granted that the two events coincided; but, I wasn't aware why.
Background: The first presidential election in the 18th century was held from Monday, December 15, 1788 to Saturday, January 10, 1789. It was the first presidential election in the United States of America under the new United States Constitution, which was adopted on September 17, 1787, and the only election ever to take place partially in a year that is not a multiple of four.
What you thoughts? Was the selection for leap year a coincidence or by design?
Background: The first presidential election in the 18th century was held from Monday, December 15, 1788 to Saturday, January 10, 1789. It was the first presidential election in the United States of America under the new United States Constitution, which was adopted on September 17, 1787, and the only election ever to take place partially in a year that is not a multiple of four.
What you thoughts? Was the selection for leap year a coincidence or by design?
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Election 2016
Election 2016
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 8
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MCPO Roger Collins
Sure appreciate the self correcting feature on my smart phone. That was meant to say "reelected".
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Here's an odd little factoid. Every leap year will have a Presidential election, but not every Presidential election will occur in a leap year. Technically, years equally divisible by four are leap years, except years that fall on the century and are not also equally divisible by 400. I had to write a program in college that took that little factoid into account (spoiler, it sucked having to code that). So, 1800 and 1900 were election years, but weren't leap years. The 2100 Presidential election year will be the same way.
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LTC Stephen F.
LTC Kevin B. 1796 and 1804 were leap years. 1896 and 1904 were leap years. Are you indicating that either 1799 or 1801 were leaps years or that February 29 was not delegated as a day between 1796 and 1804? Same question would apply to the period between 1896 and 1904 and 2096 and 2104.
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LTC Kevin B.
LTC Stephen F. - We went from 1798 to 1804 without a leap year in between. So, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, and 1803 all had 365 days (no Feb. 29th). The same occurred after 1896 and before 1904, and will occur after 2096 and before 2104. Odd, huh?
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LTC Stephen F.
LTC Kevin B. - I was interested to learn that Julius Caesar was the monarch who introduced Leap Years in the Roman empire approximately 2000 years ago. Which was sufficient until the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar which was not based on superstition and was more accurate.
Background from:
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leapyear.html
Why do we have Leap Years?
Leap Years are needed to keep our modern day Gregorian Calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds – to circle once around the Sun. This is called a tropical year.
However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!
Which Years are Leap Years?
In the Gregorian calendar 3 criteria must be taken into account to identify leap years:
The year is evenly divisible by 4;
If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
This means that 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years.
The year 2000 was somewhat special as it was the first instance when the third criterion was used in most parts of the world since the transition from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.
Who invented Leap Years?
Julius Caesar introduced Leap Years in the Roman empire over 2000 years ago, but the Julian calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by 4 would be a leap year. This led to way too many leap years, but didn't get corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar more than 1500 years later.
Background on the Julian calendar from:
http://www.infoplease.com/calendar/roman.html
When Rome emerged as a world power, the difficulties of making a calendar were well known, but the Romans complicated their lives because of their superstition that even numbers were unlucky. Hence their months were 29 or 31 days long, with the exception of February, which had 28 days. However, four months of 31 days, seven months of 29 days, and one month of 28 days added up to only 355 days. Therefore the Romans invented an extra month called Mercedonius of 22 or 23 days. It was added every second year.
Background from:
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leapyear.html
Why do we have Leap Years?
Leap Years are needed to keep our modern day Gregorian Calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds – to circle once around the Sun. This is called a tropical year.
However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!
Which Years are Leap Years?
In the Gregorian calendar 3 criteria must be taken into account to identify leap years:
The year is evenly divisible by 4;
If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
This means that 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years.
The year 2000 was somewhat special as it was the first instance when the third criterion was used in most parts of the world since the transition from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.
Who invented Leap Years?
Julius Caesar introduced Leap Years in the Roman empire over 2000 years ago, but the Julian calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by 4 would be a leap year. This led to way too many leap years, but didn't get corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar more than 1500 years later.
Background on the Julian calendar from:
http://www.infoplease.com/calendar/roman.html
When Rome emerged as a world power, the difficulties of making a calendar were well known, but the Romans complicated their lives because of their superstition that even numbers were unlucky. Hence their months were 29 or 31 days long, with the exception of February, which had 28 days. However, four months of 31 days, seven months of 29 days, and one month of 28 days added up to only 355 days. Therefore the Romans invented an extra month called Mercedonius of 22 or 23 days. It was added every second year.
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SGM Mikel Dawson
LTC Stephen F. Sir, it seems like you are just chuck full of all kinds of interesting information. Thank for the post!
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I'll offer up the Founding Fathers had no idea of the extra day of campaign season suffering we'd perpetually get put through. Besides that, an interesting piece of history. George Washington was going to get elected no matter what so the real shenanigans was with the vote for Vice President with Hamilton encouraging people not to vote for Adams lest Adams get the Presidency. Of the 13 colonies, two couldn't vote as they hadn't ratified the Constitution, and one didn't because the State Legislature was deadlocked. Four states had no popular vote. The first election was much more about getting a start. BTW the 12th Amendment made the process more uniform as the States were all over the board on who or how Electoral Votes were determined. Remember it was always about how male landowners retained control.
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