Have you ever asked yourself “leap year, what’s the point of it?” I’m sure I’m not the only one. Growing up, I had a friend with a birthday that fell on February 29th. I was a kid when I learned of this, and was horrified to learn she only had birthdays every four years. She assured me they just celebrated it each year on the 1st of March, when it wasn’t a Leap Year. I was 6 when this all went down, give me a break! But it led me to wonder “why do we have Leap Year, anyway?”
Leap Year, what’s the point?
First, do you know what a Leap Year is? In short, it’s a year that has 366 days instead of 365. February receives the extra day. On leap years, instead of 28 days, February has 29. Simple enough.
Now that you know what a leap year is, why the heck do we need this to happen? Apparently, a year is based on the Earth’s rotation. I hope everyone out there knew this information, but if not, you do now. Spread the knowledge to others. What everyone might NOT know? We all thing the Earth takes 365 days to rotate, which is why we have 365 days to our years. Okay, well, it isn’t true. It takes 365.242 days for the Earth to rotate, and by rotate I mean to rotate around the sun. Just wanted to make that clear to everyone who might not know.
Are you over the shock of this shattering news? It’s like mic drop time, right? Did I blow your mind? Here’s why we have leap years: to make sure the Earth’s at the same point of its orbit at the same exact time of the calendar each year, we have to do a little readjustment every 4 years. Yup. It’s all because we base our year, and seasons, on the Gregorian calendar.
Years ago I learned this in school. However, I had forgotten that every 400 years, a leap year is skipped three times.