Leap year happens just every 4 years.
Why?
First, leap days are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth’s revolutions around the Sun.
It takes the Earth approximately 365.242189 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds – to circle once around the Sun. This is called a tropical year.
Without an extra, or intercalary day, on February 29 nearly every four years, we would lose almost six hours every year. After only 100 years, a calendar without leap years would be off by approximately 24 days in relation to fixed seasonal days such as the vernal equinox or the winter solstice.
I wanted to share with you about leap year, as it was happening now.
Roman general Julius Caesar implemented the first leap day in his Julian calendar, which he introduced in 45 BCE.
He then added a leap day, every four years. At the time, leap day was February 24, and February was the last month of the year.
However, adding a leap day every four years was too often, it was too many leap years.
Consequently, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar.
Therefore, this calendar, which we still use today, has a more precise formula for calculation of leap years.
Here’s a website with extensive information about leap year:
So, every 4 years you are given an extra day. How did you use yours? Did you appreciate this extra time?
Above all, did you cherish your extra day? Are you cherishing your days every day?
We don’t need to be living within a leap year to slow down and appreciate people and things in our life.
What is it you can do more of?
Likewise, what more can you add or take away from your life? How would doing this help you to appreciate more often?
Send me a comment with your thoughts. I’d enjoy hearing them!
With love and appreciation,
Connie
PS. The word intercalary, in sentence five, means “added into a calendar”.
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