Here we go… leaping into March!
This year happens to be a Leap Year, the last one we had was in 2012 – yes, we all know it’s every 4 years, but do we really know why?
Well, the 365 days of the calendar year are meant to match up with the solar year, which is the time it takes the Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun, which is about one year – also called a tropical year. But the actual time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun is in fact a bit longer than that, it’s about 365 ¼ days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be exact). Therefore the calendar and the solar year don't completely match, so every 4 years we add one day.
Although it may not seem like much of a difference, but after a few years those extra quarter days in the solar year begin to add up. After four years, for example, the four extra quarter days would make the calendar fall behind the solar year by about a day, not much, however over the course of a century, the difference between the solar year and the calendar year would become 25 days! So to put that into perspective (especially from a child’s view) instead of summer beginning in June, it wouldn't start until practically a month later, waiting until July for summer to start? No thank you! So every four years a leap day is added to the calendar to allow it to catch up to the solar year.
Did you also know there’s some less scientific traditions about leap year that are pretty interesting?
One of the biggest ones is marriage proposals made by women instead of men (granted it’s the year 2016 and not the 5th Century Ireland). Click here for more in depth history behind this fascinating custom.
http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/leap-year-february-29th-is-when-women-can-ask-men-to-marry-them-140128503-237431711.html