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7 Things you should know about leap years
The onset of 2016, indicated in the Chinese calendar as the year of the Fire Monkey - a leap. Since ancient times it was believed that a leap year brings misery and suffering. < Website said, it is in fact.
The main difference from the rest of the leap year - the number of days in the year. They - 366, that is, one day more than the usual year. Where did he come from? The tropical year lasts exactly 365 days, and 365 plus 5 hours and 48 minutes. For four years, just run over the extra day. The term "leap year" for the first time began to be used in the Roman Empire, and was introduced by Julius Caesar. In Latin it was called "bissekstus" in Greek is pronounced "vissekstus" in Russia - "visokos." We added an extra day month of February. Later on February 29 has been called "Kasyanov's Day" in honor of the saint, who was known for his bad temper. By the way, in the Jewish calendar, leap year is called the year, to which is added per month, not the day. The 19-year cycle consists of 12 simple and 7 leap years. It just so happened that a leap year anciently attributed to various disasters, catastrophes, disease and pestilence. However, scientists believe that the cause of human fears - in themselves, in human psychology. After in nature there is no such thing as "a leap year» - it was invented people. And all the folk beliefs associated with it, have no scientific basis. It has long been proved that the leap years in the number of natural disasters, or "man-made" troubles did not differ from the ordinary. Leap years have their own sad record. For example, February 2, 1556 China's powerful earthquake that killed 830,000 people. A July 28, 1976 an earthquake in Eastern China claimed 750,000 lives. The victims of a powerful earthquake in & n≈bsp; Ashgabat in 1948 were about 100 thousand people, and in 1988 from the disaster in Armenia killed 23,000 people. In 1912, he sunk "Titanic." In leap years come and crash of the French airliner "Concord", and the death of the Russian submarine "Kursk", and much more. But other natural disasters and human "creation" does not fall under the magic leap years. The strongest volcanic explosion in 1815 in Indonesia, "buried" 92,000 people. Devastating floods that occurred in 1887 in China's Yellow River, claimed the lives of 900 thousand people. A terrible cyclone in the history of meteorological observations recording in 1970 in Bangladesh took the life of 500 thousand people. Such examples can give a lot. 1905 th, 1914 th, 1917 th, 1941 th years, which fell the most terrible and bloody upheaval in the history of the last century were not leap years. So maybe it's not about magic numbers? The only ones who really "suffer" - born February 29, because they have to celebrate his birthday once every four years.
via napensii.ua/articles/1554-tak-li-opasen-visokosnyy-god-kak-ego-malyuyut
