Why Do We Have Leap Year?
And why aren’t we required to leap? –Kermit Dear Kermit, Long ago, people needed to track the passage of days to assist with their survival–and not just to plan their birthday parties and weekly therapy sessions. These ancient people figured out that it took about 365 days to rotate through the four seasons. About is the key word here. It actually takes a little bit more than 365 days–about 365.25, in fact. If we didn’t have leap years, which are part of the Gregorian calendar that we follow, we’d get six hours behind every year. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but over time, it adds up. The adjustment doesn’t sound too tricky, but again about is the key word. It actually takes Earth a tiny bit less than 365.25 days to travel around the Sun (365.242199, if you’re keeping score).
Laura McKinney, Reporter The first calendars were based on the cycles of the moon. There are about 12 full moons between one spring and the next. The 29 or 30 days separating the full moons became the 12 months we use today. However, lunar calendars didn’t work because they only had 360 days. It takes the earth 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to orbit around the sun. Because of this, the seasons eventually didn’t match up with the months. The Egyptians were the first to use a solar calendar. It had 365 days, but the 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds began to throw it off over several hundred years. By 1582, the first day of spring had moved to March 11. Church leaders were beginning to worry that Easter might fall in the middle of winter, so Pope Gregory XIII ordered 1583 shortened by 10 days. This returned the first day of spring to March 21. The Pope established the practice of adding a leap year day to the end of February once every 4 years. In his honor, this system
Leap year keeps our calendar in alignment with the earth’s revolutions around the sun. We refer to a year as 365 days long. Actually, it takes the earth 365.24219 days to travel around the sun. We round the fraction of a day down to 365 days. To have .24219 of a day each year would throw time and season’s into an unending chaos of change.
Even though we call 365 days a year, the earth does not revolve around the sun in 365 days. Rather, it takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to do this. The extra time is made up by adding one extra day to the end of February every four years, EXCEPT in those years which can be divided evenly by 100. Then that extr
