MATH STINGER #72 
by Dr. Joel C. Fowler 
Assistant Professor of Mathematics 

A holiday puzzle is as follows. In 1995, Christmas falls on a Monday. The puzzle is to determine how many 
of the next billion (1,000,000,000) Christmases (including 1995) will fall on a Monday (assuming that our 
current Gregorian calendar will continue to be used). Under the Gregorian calendar each year contains 365 
days except for leap years, which contain 366. Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year except for century 
years in which the year is not divisible by 400. For example, 1900 was not a leap year, but 2000 will be. 
As an additional puzzle, determine the only other day of the week to have the same number of Christmases 
as Monday during the billion years.

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