The present calendar, which came after the old Julian calendar, was revised under Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The Gregorian calendar kept the extra day every four years, except in years that ended in 00 — unless those years were divisible by the number 400. For example, the year 1900 would not have an extra day, but the year 2000 would have (because 2000 is divisible by 400).
It sounds complicated, but the Gregorian calendar was a simple improvement over the Julian, and most of the world adopted it.
Here are some fun facts about the Leap Year that’s really worth to know:
1. What is a Leap Year, and why do we have it?
A leap year is a year containing one additional day (February 29) added to keep the Gregorian calendar (365 days) synchronized with the orbit of the earth around the sun, which is about 365.2422 days.
2. Why February?
During the reign of the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, all other months in the Julian calendar including February, have 30 or 31 days. July, which is named after him had 31 days and August had only 29. But when Julius was succeeded by Augustus Caesar, the latter added two days to 'his' month to make August the same as July. To keep up with the Earth’s annual cycle, he ordered February to lose 2 days.
3. What are your chances of being born on February 29?
About 1 in 1,500. Those born on February 29 are called as as "leaplings", or "leapers". They usually celebrate their birthdays on February 28 or March 1.
4. A leap year every four years is not true.
Most years that can be divided evenly by 4 are leap years, except for century years (like 1800, 1900, 2100, and so forth...) which are NOT leap years UNLESS they can be evenly divided by 400. The year 2000 was a leap year, but the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not.
5.What about the Leap Second?
A leap second is a one-second adjustment that is occasionally applied to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in order to keep its time of day close to the mean solar time, or UT1. Without such a correction, time reckoned by Earth's rotation drifts away from atomic time because of irregularities in the Earth's rate of rotation, which is gradually slowing down by around two thousandths of a second per day.
Since this system of correction was implemented in 1972, 26 leap seconds have been inserted, the most recent on June 30, 2015 at 23:59:60 UTC
6. February 29 is not a holiday... yet.
According to an article from the Telegraph, workers in some parts of the world have realized that for every leap year, they have to work one extra day for no extra pay. A high school teacher from Maryland, Karl Savage, already kick-started a campaign called the “No Work on Leap Day Revolution”.
If you like to join the campaign, you can like their Facebook page HERE.
7. Leap year proposal
Western traditions say that it’s just fine for a woman to propose to a man on February 29. Such tradition has been credited to the story of St. Bridget, who is said to have complained to St. Patrick that women had to wait too long for their boyfriends to pop the question. Much obliged, Patrick supposedly gave women one day to propose.
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