Leap Year Explained
Leap years synchronize the calendar year with the solar year
by Ann Marie Imbornoni & Mark Hughes
Why do we need leap year?
The Gregorian calendar, which now serves as the standard calendar
for civil use throughout the world, has both...
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Leap Year Explained
Leap years synchronize the calendar year with the solar year
by Ann Marie Imbornoni & Mark Hughes
Why do we need leap year?
The Gregorian calendar, which now serves as the standard calendar
for civil use throughout the world, has both common years and leap
years.
A common year has 365 days and a leap year 366 days, with
the extra, or intercalary, day designated as February 29.
A leap year
occurs every four years to help synchronize the calendar year with the
solar year, or the length of time it takes the earth to complete its orbit
about the sun, which is about 365¼ days.
The length of the solar year, however, is slightly less than 365¼ days
—by about 11 minutes.
To compensate for this discrepancy, the leap
year is omitted three times every four hundred years.
In other words, a century year cannot be a leap year unless it is
divisible by 400.
Thus 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but
1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years.
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