Yesterday was February 29, 2024, also known as Leap Day. Do you know the origins and reasons behind having a Leap Year?
Science :
Leap Day/Year is a day we celebrate every 4 years when February magically gets 1 extra day added to its already shortened month. This is necessary because a full calendar year doesn’t precisely equal 365 days. Instead, a year is really .24219 days longer than we think. Because of this fact, the earth routinely needs to adjust the calendar every 4 years to prevent chaos, such as Christmas falling in July or Independence Day landing in the dead of winter.
Leap Year has existed for more than 2,000 years since Julius Caesar first created the 365-day calendar. However, Caesar’s astronomer, Sosigenes, deserves credit for adding an extra day in February every 4 years to balance out our calendar.
Check out the video below to discover why we celebrate Leap Year every 4 years.
THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY!
OK WASSUP! discusses Science:
Leap Day and Leap Year 2024.
DJ, thank you for posting about this. I have wondered many times why we have Leap Year? For some reason I never researched it.
The beginning of the video was a big help in explaining it. But honestly by the end of the video, she pretty much lost me. Lol
TGIF!
Hi Truthiz1,
I think what she was trying to convey is that time is imperfect. Even though we add a day to the calendar every 4 years, that’s not a permanent fix. So, we have to ignore Leap Year every 100 years in order to course correct the calendar again and prevent Christmas from eventually landing in July, etc. Confusing, I know. Hope this helps!
-DJ