[REPOST] Leap Year explained

Ever feel like you just don’t have enough time?

Well, once every four years, we all get an extra 24 hours… when leap year rolls around.

There actually is a science behind this bonus day: While there are 365 days in a calendar year, it actually takes a little longer — 365.2422 days to be exact — for the Earth to complete its annual journey around the sun. This essentially adds up to 365 days and 6 hours. Six times four? Twenty-four. So, to realign us with the Earth’s movement around the sun, an extra day — 24 hours — is built into the calendar once every four years.

Think that’s confusing? Up until Julius Caesar came along and created his own calendar, people observed a 355-day year with an extra month called Mercedonius. Caesar did away with that complicated system by creating a new day, which we now know as Feb. 29. But his math didn’t quite add up either. So, when Pope Gregory XIII reformed the system in 1582, he did some fine-tuning and gave Feb. 29 a permanent place on the new Gregorian calendar — once every four years.

The way the math works out, a century year is a leap year only if it is divisible by 400. So years such as 1700, 1800 and 1900 weren’t leap years. But, of course, 2016 is.

Leap day itself, Feb. 29, has long been the inspiration of folklore, most notably a tradition out of the United Kingdom of women proposing to their significant others.

And what about people born on Feb. 29? Technically speaking, their birthdays only roll around once every four years. So, that means this year, actor Antonio Sabato Jr. will have his 11th birthday, self-help guru Tony Robbins will have his 14th and rapper Ja Rule will be celebrating his 10th.

So, while others might feel “day”zed and confused on Feb. 29, at least you can say, “Now I get it!”

Article by Sarah B. Boxer