Can the first day of a century fall on a Sunday?
Dear Straight Dope: I read recently online that “the first day of a century can never fall on a Sunday,” which seems incredible and probably wrong as the maths seems to imply that millennium years (1000, 2000 etc.) are leap years. What is the truth? —Whippets SDSTAFF Karen Lingel replies: It’s not all that surprising: the calendar follows a predictable pattern, and so do the days of the week. Since first days of the century occur so rarely (oh, about every 100 years or so), it’s entirely possible that the alignment of these two fixed repeating patterns might not allow the New Year’s Day of a year evenly divisible by 100 – which we’ll call the first day of the century, the protests of pedants notwithstanding – to fall on a Sunday. But let’s do the calculations and see. OK: There are 365 days in a common year (a year without a leap day). Dividing 7 into 365, we get 52 plus a remainder of 1 – a common year is exactly 52 weeks plus one day. Therefore, from a common year to the following ye
