What is a leap year?
2024 is the so-called leap yeari.e. counting 366 days instead of the standard 365. Once every 4 years, February is additionally “extended” by 1 calendar day. Main reason? The need to increase the precision of our way of counting time to the so-called tropical years. 1 tropical year (also called tropical or solar) is the time of a complete revolution of the Earth around the Sun, which is 365.2422 days (solar days).
When were leap years first introduced?
According to historical sources, the first “corrections” in this regard were already introduced by the ancient Egyptians, who used lunar calendar – an additional day was included every 4 years. He adopted a similar method Julius Caesar in 45 BC creating by decree the so-called Julian calendar (currently in force, among others, in the Orthodox Church). This version of the calendar, however, had an error of approximately 1 day in 128 years.
Did the Gregorian calendar correct the “mistakes” of its predecessors?
The correction was introduced in the – currently applicable – Gregorian calendarestablished in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. The Gregorian version was based on the Julian calendar. The modernization included, among others: on the correction of the calculation of leap years.
It was agreed that in the Gregorian calendar there will be no leap years with numbers divisible by 100, but leap years divisible by 400 (the remaining years with numbers divisible by 4 will remain leap years). Thus, the error in calculating time in the Julian calendar has been reduced.
February 29. An additional day in the calendar – an interesting fact and an original birthday
In short, the “extra” day helped our ancestors organize and synchronize civil and agricultural calendars with the tropical year. Currently, for most people, an extra day in the calendar remains a curiosity that does not affect everyday life. There are exceptions, of course people born on February 29who may celebrate their birthdays unusually “every 4 years” or more traditionally – on the last day of February.
We are reminded of this unusual date by, among others: funny graphics Google Doodlewhich has replaced the standard search engine logo today.