Leap Year: What they didn't tell you!

So February 29th is upon us, but why the hell do we add 24 hours to our year? And why only every 4 years? Well this week we are going to unravel the wonder that is the leap year....

How It All Began
Right this is gonna take some real explaining so bear with me.
We all know that the Roman Empire were the worlds first superpower, and pretty much ruled the known world. (This is a basic backstory!) The original Roman Calendar had ten months, Starting from March to December. This is why September is no longer the 7th month, same goes for October and December and their respective numbers. Then  Numa the second King of Rome added two months to the calender: Ianuarius (January) and Februarius (February). All went swimmingly for the next 600 years, and as the Kingdom of Rome became The Roman Republic, the seasons started to shift out of sync.

The Egyptians now part of the Roman Republic figured out that The Roman calendar wasn't lined up correctly with the solar calendar (365.242199 days), So the leader at the time, Julius Caesar added an extra ten days to the year and added the leap day to come at the end of February every 4 years. The pompous git also changed the month of Quintilis to Julius (July) in his honour. For an added bonus his son Augustus also changed the month Sextilis to...... come on I am sure you can work it out! The clue is in his name! Caesar's reforms actually weren't far off the solar calendar and for the next 1500 years all was good, well apart from the fall of the empire an the world being plunged into the dark ages, but I digress....

In the year 1582 Pope Gregory XIII tweaked the Julian Calendar to the current Gregorian calendar we use today.  The leap day is still at the end of February almost very 4 years. Except the rule is a leap year can only happen on a year that is divisible by 4, but can never happen on a year divisible by 100 unless it can also be divided by 400, not too confusing then! A good example is that 1900 wasn't a leap year but 2000 was. So there you have it a brief and basic history of our calendar, and the leap day!

Interesting Leap Year Facts

• The Gregorian calendar isn't perfect, it will go out of sync with the Solar Calendar by 1 day every 3236 years!
• The Chinese calendar doesn't have a leap day, it has a leap month!
• Sweden (and Finland) had a "double" leap year in 1712, because two days were added to February. That year there was a date February 30, 1712. This was done because the leap year in 1700 was dropped, and Sweden's calendar was not synchronised with any other calendar. By adding an extra day in 1712, they were back on the Gregorian calendar.
• Your chances of being born on a leap day are approximately 1 in 1500. There are about 4 million people in the world who were born on Leap Day.
• If you were born on a leap day, you will celebrate your birthday on either the 28th of February or the 1st of March.
• As the story goes, the tradition of women romantically pursuing men in leap years began in 5th century Ireland, when St Bridget complained to St Patrick about the fairer sex having to wait for men to propose. Patrick finally relented and set February 29th aside  allowing women the right to ask for a man's hand in marriage.

Everything you never needed or wanted to know about leap years summed up in a lovely little blog. Hope you enjoyed it, even if it meant you had to learn something!