As today is auspiciously February 29th, I thought I would do a post on Leap Years and how they reconcile our reckoning of time.

Simply put, Leap Days are usually added once every four years, extending the month of February to 29 days. The reason for this addition is that the length of a year, defined as the amount of time it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun, is slightly more than 365 days–365.2425 days to be exact. The concept originally started with the Julian Calendar, named after Julian Caesar.

If you are keeping track, however, adding a day every four years slightly overcompensates, because the the extra time every four years amounts to slightly less than one day–if you do the math, it’s .97 days every four years rather than a full day. The Gregorian Calendar, the one used by most of modern society, adjusts this deficiency in the Julian Calendar by taking out a certain number of leap years. By definition, the Gregorian Calendar adds one day every four years, except years evenly divisible by 100 but not by 400. You might stare at the screen cross-eyed for a moment to try to figure that out, but it is really quite easy. If a year is divisible by 100 there is no leap year, but if it is divisible by 400 there is. So the years 1600, 2000, and 2400 all had or will have leap years, but 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200 etc. do not. This corrects the number of days exactly.

The reason for the term “Leap Year” is the effect it has on our calendar. Generally speaking, each date in the calendar occurs on a successive day of the week the following year. For example, Christmas in 1998 was on a Friday, while in 1999 it was on a Saturday. In 2000 because it was a Leap Year, Christmas that year skipped or leaped over Sunday and landed on a Monday.

Here are a few fun facts about historical February 29the events:

• In 1848 Neuchatel declared its independence from Prussia.
• In 1880 The Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland and Italy was completed.
• In 1932 FDR signs the second neutrality act.
• In 1944 Karol Wojtyla who later became Pope John Paul II was injured when struck by a Nazi truck in Krakow.
• In 1980 Gordie Howe, the NHL record holder, scored his 800th goal.
• In 1984 Pierre Trudeau announced his resignation as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister of Canada.
• In 1992 Ray Bourque becomes the 3rd defenseman in NHL history to score 1000 points.
• In 1996 the Siege of Sarajevo ended.
• In 2004 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

And finally, a few February 24 birthdays.

• 1468 – Pope Paul III
• 1792 – Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer
• 1692 – John Byrom, English poet and educator
• 1904 – Jimmy Dorsey, American saxophonist, composer and bandleader
• 1948 – Patricia A. McKillip, American author
• 1964 – Dave Brailsford, English British Cycling and Team Ineos Director
• 1980 – Simon Gagné, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1984 – Mark Foster, American singer, songwriter and musician
• 1992 – Jessie T. Usher, American actor

All information for this post was sourced from the following pages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_29
https://www.onthisday.com/events/february/29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year