The new year 2024 has arrived, and it will be complete with an extra day, known as a leap year.
Unlike most years that have 365 days, 2024 is a leap year, meaning it has 366 days.
Below are some key points you should know about the Gregorian leap year.
When is the next leap year?
Leap years occur approximately every four years. This year’s leap day will fall on February 29, 2024.
The next leap years will be in 2028, 2032, and 2036. Leap days will be on February 29, 2028; February 29, 2032; and February 29, 2036.
Leap Year 2024 – (Photo: THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH).
Why do we need leap years?
Although we follow the Gregorian calendar of 365 days, also known as the solar calendar, the Earth actually takes over a year to orbit the Sun.
Without the additional day in leap years, the calendar and the seasons would gradually fall out of sync. This would impact agriculture and harvesting.
According to NASA, one year based on the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is equivalent to 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds.
In most years, the calendar rounds down to 365 days, but those extra nearly 6 hours each year do not simply disappear; every 4 years, we need to add an extra day to keep the calendar accurate.
To account for the discrepancy created by those hours, every leap year, which occurs every four years, February receives an additional day, making it 29 days long instead of 28.
Although this is a small difference, those hours would accumulate over time without the existence of leap years.
“For example: suppose July is a warm summer month where you live. If we did not have leap years, all those missing hours would add up to days, weeks, and even months. Eventually, in a few hundred years, July would actually occur in the cold winter,” NASA explains.
The Mathematics of Leap Years
While leap years typically occur every four years, this is not always the case.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar by determining that all years divisible by 4 are leap years, except for “century years” which must be divisible by 400 to be considered leap years.
There is a bit of math to determine a leap year in the Gregorian calendar: A leap year must be divisible by 4 and by 400. However, if a year is divisible by 4 but also by 100 (a century year), then it is not a leap year.
This is why the year 2000 was a leap year, but 2100, 2200, and 2300 are not leap years.
People born on February 29 are “special” individuals
Approximately 5 million people worldwide have their birthday on February 29 during leap years. In non-leap years, they typically celebrate their birthdays on February 28 or March 1. In leap years like 2024, they can celebrate on the actual date of February 29.
Educational scientist Brianne Lutz told CBS Sunday Morning that children born on February 29 during a leap year have a “special development,” such as composer Gioachino Rossini (born February 29, 1792); film director William Wellman (February 29, 1896); bandleader Jimmy Dorsey (February 29, 1904); and singer Dinah Shore (February 29, 1916)…
The concept of leap day was created by Julius Caesar, the first emperor of Rome, who recognized that the calendar was becoming misaligned.
However, he added too many leap days. 1,500 years later, Pope Gregory XIII corrected Caesar’s mistake, leading to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, which is the modern solar calendar.
