Ever wondered why we have leap years? Here’s the answer…

Leap years are such a well-integrated part of our calendar system it’s easy to accept them without giving them a second thought. But have you ever stopped to wonder why on earth they exist? Everybody knows that leap years fall every four years and that women are encouraged to propose on leap day – this […]

Leap years are such a well-integrated part of our calendar system it’s easy to accept them without giving them a second thought.
But have you ever stopped to wonder why on earth they exist?
Everybody knows that leap years fall every four years and that women are encouraged to propose on leap day – this year February 29 falls on a Monday (today).
But regardless of what you think of this tradition, it turns out that leap years are actually pretty important and play a key role in keeping our seasons and calendars on schedule.
Our system relies on a solar calendar which means the sun’s position marks the season and also tells us how long a year is.
One year is measured as the time from the beginning of spring to the following spring – and this is NOT 365 days as we all say, but actually 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds.
Measuring a year to such an exacting degree of accuracy, however, isn’t practicable.
So philosophers rounded this up to 365 days and one quarter in a bid to keep things simple.
To avoid having to deal with a quarter of a day every year, every four years we have to add on an extra day to the calendar. Because four quarter days makes one full day.
Without this, the months would slowly shift in time with the sun, until eventually June would be winter (although that arguably wouldn’t feel so different here in the UK).
So leap years are any year that can be divided by four, except century years which must be divisible by 400.
And the reason why the leap day is always in February boils down to one narcissistic Roman emperor.
The calendar created by Julius Caesar left February with 30 days, July (named after Julius) with 31, and August with 29.
When Augustus came into power, however, he wanted his month (August) to have more days. So he added two days to his month and took one from February.
And that’s why every four years we have February 29 – leap day.

Culled from thesun.co.uk