How many Valentine's Days were there in 2006?

This year's "Dog's Head" and "Dog's Tail" span two Western Valentine's Days, February 14. Coupled with the two Valentine's Days in China in July this year, the number of Valentine's Days in the Year of the Dog has indeed doubled.

According to Lin Qing, an expert from Shanghai Observatory of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bing Xu in 2006 is a leap year of the lunar calendar, because there is a leap in July and the year of the dog has 385 days. For more than 2000 years, this is 12 lunar leap year. The last time was 1944, which means there were 8 big months (30 days) and 5 small months (29 days). This year is also the year with the largest number of big months in this century.

Because the year of the dog is particularly long, there is a "spring at two ends of the year", that is, beginning of spring appears twice in the year of the lunar calendar, and the next lunar new year is not ushered in until February 18, 2007. Therefore, the year of the dog falls on February 14, Valentine's Day in the west.

July is a leap year for dogs, so there are two "seventh days of July" (July 3 1 and August 30/respectively), namely the traditional "Qixi" Valentine's Day in China.

So how did this leap July come about? Astronomical calendar experts say that this should start with the difference between the lunar calendar and the solar calendar. The lunar calendar is mainly related to the full and short of the moon. A month in the lunar calendar is a "full moon" with a total of 354 days in a year, which is 1 1 day different from the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, the lunar calendar leaps every 3 years 1 month, 5 years and 2 months, 7 years and 3 months, 19 years and 7 months. This method of setting leap month is called "19 7 leap method".

A year with a leap month is called a leap year, but the specific leap month depends on 24 solar terms. 24 solar terms is a general term, in which even solar terms (vernal equinox, summer solstice, summer heat, summer heat, autumn equinox, etc. ) Also known as "neutral gas", the first month of a leap year without "neutral gas" is this year's leap month. According to this regulation, the month after July this year is only the solar terms and the Millennium, and the summer heat after beginning of autumn falls to another month. These 24 solar terms are actually a reflection of the apparent movement of the sun. The solar calendar is relatively fixed, and the lunar calendar has no fixed date. The last leap in July was at 1968.