What is a Leap Year? Why do we Have a Leap Year?

What is a Leap Year

Leap years are years where an additional day is added to the end of the shortest month, February. The extra day, February 29, is generally referred to as leap day. Leap years have 366 days rather than the standard 365 days and occur almost every four years.

Why do we Have a Leap Year?

1. Leap days retain our modern-day Gregorian calendar in alignment with Earth’s revolutions around the Sun. It takes Earth approximately 365.242189 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds, to circle once around the Sun. This time accepted to complete one revolution around the Sun is called a tropical year, and it commences on the March equinox.
2. Nevertheless, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year. If we didn’t add a leap day on February 29 about every four years, each calendar year would start about 6 hours before the Earth completes its revolution around the Sun.
3. As a result, our time calculation would gradually drift apart from the tropical year and get increasingly out of sync with the seasons. With a variation of approximately 6 hours per year, the seasons would shift by about 24 calendar days within 100 years. Allow for a while, and Northern Hemisphere dwellers will be celebrating Christmas in the middle of summer in a matter of a few centuries.
4. Leap days fix that error by giving Earth the extra time it needs to complete a full revolution around the Sun.

Who Invented Leap Years?

1. Leap years in the western calendar were first begun over 2000 years ago by Roman general Julius Caesar. Caesar became assured of the supremacy of the Egyptian solar calendar, which featured 365 days and an occasional intercalary month which was added when astronomers observed the right conditions in the stars. Caesar and the philosopher Sosigenes of Alexandria made one substantial modification that: any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year.
2. This method produced numerous leap years, causing the Julian calendar to drift apart from the tropical year at a rate of 1 day per 128 years. This method remained until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar more than 1500 years later when many days were skipped to realign our calendar with the seasons.

Leap years as per the rules set forth in the Gregorian calendar till date:

1600 1604 1608 1612 1616 1620 1624 1628 1632 1636 1640 1644 1648 1652 1656 1660 1664 1668 1672 1676 1680 1684 1688 1692 1696 1704 1708 1712 1716 1720 1724 1728 1732 1736 1740 1744 1748 1752 1756 1760 1764 1768 1772 1776 1780 1784 1788 1792 1796 1804 1808 1812 1816 1820 1824 1828 1832 1836 1840 1844 1848 1852 1856 1860 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 2028 2032 2036 2040 2044 2048 2052 2056 2060 2064 2068 2072 2076 2080 2084 2088 2092 2096 2104 2108 2112 2116 2120 2124 2128 2132 2136 2140 2144 2148 2152.

Note that 2000 was a leap year because it is divisible by 400, but that 1900 was not a leap year.

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