Happy Leap Day!
February calendars have a 29th day, which means 2012 is a Leap Year with 366 days instead of 365 in a common year.
But while many sign their checks and write down the date, February 29, they also wonder what exactly it is and why we have an extra day some years.
February 29 occurs every four years and is called a leap day, which was first introduced by Julius Caesar over 2000 years ago.
Leap year adds an extra day to our modern Gregorian calendar to keep it in alignment with the Earth as it revolves around the sun.
The Earth takes about 365.242199 days (365 days, five hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds) to revolve around the sun and since the Gregorian calendar only has 365 days in a year, we would lose about six hours off our calendar each year if not for leap year .
Confused? Luckily, a great new video explaining leap year has gone viral.
“With each passing year, the gap gets bigger and bigger and bigger,”explains the narrator in the new video. “In three decades the calendar will be off by a week and in a few hundred years the seasons would be flipped.”
While the extra day is confusing for a lot of people, it’s even more confusing for those born on it. Some people are born on the extra day in February like rapper Ja Rule or Chris Conley and are reffered to as “Leaper.” Those who call February 29 their birthday aren’t younger than the rest of us celebrating their age change every four years, instead on common years they celebrate their birthdays on the day before or after: February 28 or March 1.
Check it out.
