Kylie Schmidt, Sophomore
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Leap year occurs every four years, making the days increase from 365 to 366. Each year leading up to the Leap year, .25 is added to 365 days. The Leap year was inhabited by Julius Caesar. He created the leap year in the year of 46 B.C. The Romans originally had 355 days of the year before Caesar changed it. The Romans had their months divided with the lunar cycles. Julius saw that the Egyptians had a different calendar that went with the sun’s cycles, so he wanted to change the one the Romans had to have one more like the Egyptians. The months would be similar to the months we have now, but they would add a month in to even out the seasons! He wanted to switch to this calendar so that festivals would be more spread out. To make up for days missed, Caesar made the first year 445 days long because he knew it would take a while for everyone to adjust. Julius Caesar’s sun calendar would be a little long; 365.25 would cause the year to be 6 hours over. He managed for it to get to be 11 minutes and 14 seconds too long. The difference set off the liturgical dates like Easter, set by the lunar schedule. By 1582, it had accumulated to 10 extra days. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII fixed it by making October 15th follow October 4th. The future plan was to add a day to a month every four years, which is why there are sometimes 28 or 29 days in February, except for every 400 years, which would keep the calendar right with the solar pattern. The calendar is still 26 seconds above the solar schedule. The calendar then known as the Gregorian calendar had been adopted by England in 1582, but the colonies did not start using it until 1752, which by then the calendar was off by 11 days. That year in September, everyone went to bed on September 2nd and woke up on September 14th to even it out. There were many countries that did not adopt the calendar until much later, including Russia, who did not start using the calendar until 1917. The calendar has gone through many different and confusing changes throughout the years, but all you need to really get out of this is that every four years February gets a day added to it, and this is one of those years! So happy leap year everybody!
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