If you were to count all the days in a calendar from January to December, you’d count 365 days. Although technically it takes approximately 365.25 days for Earth to orbit the Sun in solar years. Every four years, February has 29 days instead of 28. Technically there are 366 days in that year. This is called a leap year. January 1st is our New Year, so this is the amount of time that it takes a planet to orbit its star one time. And a day is the amount of time that the planet finishes its rotation on its axis.
It takes Earth around 365 days and 6 hours to orbit the Sun. So, our year is not the exact number of days.
Most years, we round the days in a year down to 365. And those 6 hours for four years don’t disappear, we count that extra piece as a day that we add to the calendar every 4 years. So, in 2021 we had 365 days, 2022, we had 365 days, 2023, 365 days, and in 2024 we will have 366 days.
You may be asking- are leap years important? And the answer is yes! Without having a leap year, our calendar will not match the solar year. So subtracting those 6 hours could really mess things up. Think about it, we know that July is known as a summer month meaning it is warm; if we didn’t have leap years, all these missing hours would add up into days, weeks and even months. Eventually, in a few hundred years, July would actually take place in the cold winter months!
This also means that there are some people who were born on a leap year (February 29th). How do they celebrate? Most people who are born on February 29th, celebrate on either February 28th or March 1st. From a legal standpoint, in non-leap years, that day would be March 1st, so if someone is born on February 29th, the first day they can legally drive, vote, join the Army, buy alcohol or start collecting Social Security is presumably March 1 in non-leap years.
According to the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies, around 5 million people worldwide have been born on a leap year. “Leap year babies are called “leapers” or “leaplings.” You’d get a special name, too, if you had to wait four years to celebrate your birthday.” (7 Fun Facts About Leap Years – KeyPoint Credit UnionKeyPoint Credit Unionhttps://kpcu.com › Resources › Popular-Interest › 7-F…”
