February is known as the shortest month of the year, with only 28 days in the month. But, did you know that every four years there is a “leap year.” What this means is that there are 366 days in a year, rather than the traditional 365 days. You may be wondering why we would need an extra day?
February needs an extra day every four years so we can keep time in sync with the seasons. The Earth’s orbit around the sun takes about 365.2422 days. Since we get rid of the .2422 days, time catches up which is why we need an extra day in February, every four years to balance it out.
However, many want to know where did the idea of a “leap year” come from? This idea originated from Julius Caesar who was the Dictator of the Roman Empire from 46-44 BC. Early Romans had a 355-day calendar to keep festivals occurring in the same seasons. A 22-23 day month was created every two years. So to make things more simpler Caesar introduced the “Julian Calendar” which has 365 days, but as time went on the Romans noticed that solar year is longer than 365 days so they came up with adding an extra day every few years.
So why is having a leap year so important? Without a leap year the seasons would be out of sync with their normal months. For example, we associate summer with the months of June, July, August, and maybe the beginning of September. Without the leap year, winter would be in those summer months, and with the seasons being different, holidays would be in different seasons such as Christmas. Christmas would be celebrated in the summertime.
Can you imagine celebrating Christmas in the Summer?! No way!
