2024 will be a leap year: why does February have 29 days every 4 years?

If someone asked you how many days there are in a year, your immediate answer would be: “365”, right? However, this is not entirely true, after all, every four years, the month of February gains one more day – and, accordingly, the year too (which, in this case, is called a leap year).

In 2024 February will have 29 days (not 28), so the year will be a leap year. But why does this happen?

If the leap year were not created, it would be very likely that many disturbances would occur, such as changes in the equinoxes and solstices (events that mark the beginning of the seasons). This is because the calendar would be obsolete, and the day on which the beginning of winter was marked, for example, could no longer correspond to the event itself.

The month chosen to have an extra day in the leap year was February, which now has 29 days instead of 28. In fact, have you ever stopped to think about why this is the only month with fewer than 30 days?

To understand this we need to take a journey back in history, to the origins of the calendar promulgated in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII (hence the Gregorian name), officially used by most countries.

Second Pernambuco leafthe Romans adopted a calendar based on the phase changes of the Moon, observing that each phase lasted just over seven days, while the complete cycle lasted 29.5 days, giving rise to the solar month.

Over 12 months, this amounts to almost 355 days. In this configuration, the year began in March and ended in February, with months of 29 or 30 days – and only one of 28. February derives its name from Februus, the Etruscan god of death, which is why it is considered a month of bad luck, of omen – that’s why it was chosen as the shortest.

During the Empire, in 46 BC, Julius Caesar made a significant change to the Roman calendar: he moved January and February to the beginning of the year and added 10 days to reach a total of 365 days. With this, the month that was called Quintilis was renamed Julius (July) and gained an extra day, 31, in honor of the then emperor. February had 29 days.

Three decades later, the name of the current eighth (and previously sixth) month, Sextilis, was changed to Augustus (August), in reference to the emperor Caesar Augustus.

Since Augustus only had 30 days, while July had 31, the ruler stipulated that his month would also gain another day, which was removed from February. This is how the second month of the year ended with 28 days.

Centuries later, with the promulgation of the Gregorian calendar, February gained an extra day every four years, as explained above.

There are two “tricks” to know if a year is a leap year:

Therefore the following years are leap years: 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024, 2028, 2032, 2036, 2040, 2044, 2048 and so on.

Note the application of the rule for years ending in 00:

Did you know all this?

After 2024 it will be a leap year: why does February have 29 days every 4 years? appeared first on Olhar Digital.

Source: Olhar Digital