Calendars and Time

You may be wondering why Chrismas and New Years always fall on the same day of the week, even tough it is on a different week.It's very simple really because they are always 7 days apart. 

If we take February the 1st which this year began on Sunday and add 7 then next Sunday will be the 8th which is today. Adding 7 again we get 15 which will be the date for next Sunday and so on.By the way, when the 1st of  any month begins on a Sunday there will always  be a Friday the 13th.

The earth of course completes its orbit around the sun in 365 1/4 days. That 1/4 is why we have leap year to make up the difference.To figure if any year is a leap year simply divide the year by 4 if there is any remainer then the year is not a leap year.Let's take the year 2016 and divide that by 4 we get an answer of 504 and no remainer. So 2016 will be a leap year.

Now let's talk about the time on a clock : Suppose you're in the Navy boot camp and they call "Taps" (sleep time) and you go to bed at 9:30 PM and are awaken at 4:30 AM how many hours is that?

In the example above you can do this math in your head. First add 12 to the AM hour (4:30 + 12 = 16:30) then subtract the PM hour (16:30 - 9:30 = 7 hours). Odd ball hours like 9:15 PM to 9:20 AM will be  a little more difficult to do in one's head.

Did you know long time ago February always had 29 days and August always had 30 days ? Augustus Caesar had notice that his brother's month July had 31 days while his month of August only had 30 days. So Augustus took one day off  of  February and  then added to his month of August, so that both July and August  will now have  31 days.The month of July was named after Julius Caesar and the month of August was named after Augustus Caesar.

 AM means before the middle of the day. (mornings before noon)
 PM means after the middle of the day (after noon)

One final fact: In Julius Caesar's army every man had to know how to play chess.