It’s leap year! Are you an hourly wage worker? You might just get paid for this lovely extra day we get this year (sorry salary people). If you’re born on this day, you’re one in 5 million (globally) or one in 200,000 in the United States! Those stats make you even more special than your mom says you are. True story. Depending on what country you live in makes a difference in when you can claim your birthdate in non-leap years. Sorry UK peeps, you’re not allowed to consider yourself a year older until March 1. New Zealand on the other hand…they are totally feelin’ the birthday vibes fronting you a day so you can celebrate on February 28. As we tried to wrap our heads around the math involved it becomes painfully clear neither of us know what the heck we’re talking about, but we have fun discussing it anyway. (Pssst…2100 will NOT have a leap year in it, been confirmed. Calendar people, call us.)
So apparently it was the Ancient Egyptians who first noticed the anomaly of solar years not quite matching up to their calendar, but it was Julius Cesar and his astronomers in 46 BC who actually tacked an extra day onto the already short and very cold (read: no crops growing) month of February. But their math wasn’t totally accurate – it overcorrected and ended up providing too many leap years. So about 1,500 years later, Pope Gregory VIII and HIS buddies tweaked it a bit more, saying yes, in order to have a leap year the year must be divisible by four, BUT! **Finger pointing mightily to the heavens** in order to make it all work out in the end, century years (such as 2000) must be divisible by 400! Soo…. drooling… and this is where we just hand it over to people who know mathy stuff. It’s really well summed up in this article at wtop.com called Math Behind Leap Year and Why 2020 Will Be The Year to Party, by Michelle Murillo. Seriously. Don’t take our word for it, Michelle knows:
The year that we say is 365 days is actually 365.24 days. There’s almost an extra quarter day in there. Give or take .01. So, every four years, all those quarters add up to almost one and we get an extra day. Not a big deal over a handful of years, but in a century, it’s almost a month. If you let it go a couple centuries, all the seasons will be out of whack. Imagine celebrating Fourth of July in the snow! It’s better we make the correction.“
-Michelle Murillo, wtop.com
We also encourage you to read 13 Unexpected Leap Year Facts by Mary Jo Dilonardo, from February 21, 2020. Because Mary Jo also explains the reasons behind the whys and hows so much better that Kym and Kris could ever hope to. We are postulating that if your name starts with a K are not mathy, but if your name starts with an M, you are. Apparently M = Michelle, Mary Jo, and Math. And we apologize to all the K-name math wizards out there, we’re just a tiny little blog and podcast, don’t come at us.
For more fun facts about Leap Year, please also check out entitymag.com for the information Kris cited in the show, Reader’s Digest for some bizarre factoids, and chiff.com for a groovy little poem to help you remember when Leap Year hits.
Now. Let’s get down to clearing up that little misconception about the inimitable Dinah Shore. Ms. Shore, née Fannye Rose Shore, was a popular actress and singer with a career that spanned decades starting in the 1940s. Kym stated in the show she heard a rumor Ms. Shore sued her parents for not telling her there was African ancestry in their family. What we found out when we did a little research, is that in all likelihood that rumor is false. Her parents were Orthodox Jews who immigrated from Russia, and unfortunately her mother died when Fannye was only 16 years of age. We found a couple scant suggestions that the a rumor Ms. Shore had black ancestry was started by a vengeful peer, but there is no overt, factual documentation of either African ancestry, that Ms. Shore tried to sue anyone at all, or who may have started the rumor. So we’re going to say, yes the rumor is out there, but its veracity is highly unlikely. Not even gonna link to the sites we tracked down because honestly…not a big enough deal. If you really need to know, Google is your friend.
And lest we forget, we really encourage you to check out these fantastic bits and bobs we talked about today:
- Locke and Key. Streaming on Netflix! So good. Based on a comic book, it’s replete with magic, mystery and a FANTASTIC Victorian mansion in a picturesque town. How can you not watch? For more details, check out their IMDB page.
- Hunters. Streaming on Amazon Prime! Again. So good. It will make you uncomfortable (in fact, this BBC article talks about how Holocaust survivors are not happy at all with the show). Keep an open mind, suspend some beliefs that can catch you up (hello…it was 1977…they didn’t have DNA testing back then, but FINGERPRINTS WERE A THING…yet everyone touched all the weapons with their bare freaking hands). Anyway, it’s got a superhero vibe without being superheroes, and it’s presented with some kitschy tongue-in-cheek 4th wall sketches, and it is very much a social commentary about the world we live in today. But the surging truth that underlies the production is 1) we cannot forget the lessons of the Holocaust, 2) look around folks…wake up…we’re forgetting the lessons of the Holocaust, and 3) we CANNOT FORGET THE HOLOCAUST. Because REAL. HEINOUS. EVIL. REAL. We all good? Good. Because behind its hip façade, it’s a show that makes you THINK. A lot. Here’s more deets on IMDB.
- Strange Indeed. We are ALWAYS ready to shoutout great podcasts and Strange Indeed is definitely awesome. They originally started as a week-by-week fan review of the Netflix show Stranger Things, but in between production of ST, Shawn and Rima Jo talk about other streaming shows. Currently discussing Locke and Key, Rima Jo is partnered up with Jason, as Shawn has taken a temporary break from recording. Shawn and Rima Jo previously covered Netflix’s “YOU“, Hulu’s “Castle Rock” and Amazon Prime’s “Carnival Row.” Please show them some love by checking their show out. Here’s their Libsyn page (you can hear them anywhere you listen to podcasts, such as on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, etc.) and their Facebook page. Go! Follow, subscribe, listen, rate, review….do all the things. They deserve all the things man. Trust.
- Hydration Made Easy. For more information about Kym’s Cirkul bottle and all it’s benefits, check out their website drinkcirkul.com.
- Please Forgive Us. Dear Scotland. We did it again, and we’re sorry-not-sorry. We can’t promise to never attempt Scottish accents again, and we’re not sure Seamus is even a Scottish name (apparently Kris is vindicated, slightly), but please, let us visit you someday. We love you. We attempt accents because we love. By the way, Seamus and Fergus are the names of Kym’s Aussie shepherds and they make their way into the show every once in awhile. So there’s DOGS on our side, that has to count for something, yeah?
But before we go, we have to say, Billy!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Is it the 28th or the 29th? Billy, call Kym.
Check out The Mugly Truth Podcast’s episode “Leap For Joy” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Libsyn, Pocket Cast, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Then all you need to do is 1) subscribe 2) download and 3) listen! AND!!! 4) If you enjoy what you hear, please leave a rating and a review (pretty please?). The more subscribers and reviews we get, the more opportunities we get to grow this podcast and bring you richer content.
And don’t forget to follow us here at themuglytruth.com (click that blue WordPress Follow button on the right side of your screen) so you get notifications every time we post an episode blog! You can also follow The Mugly Truth on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
© The Mugly Truth 2020 and © The Mugly Truth Podcast 2020. All rights reserved.
Intro and outro music, “Clever as a Fox” by Espresso Music through premiumbeats.com.
Featured Photo of Girl Jumping by Fru00f6ken Fokus on Pexels.com.
themuglytruth.com 