Leap Year on Gregorian Calendars
How Leap Year Came to Be part of the Gregorian Calendar
Leap year explained can introduce children to the mystery and fun of calendars.
Jason was born on February 29th. He only gets a birthday every fourth year. We tease that he is only 3 and won't be four until 2008. Jason thinks he has a unique birthday and when he turns sixteen next year, his parents are planning a big party.Can you figure out what year Jason was born?
The calendar we use today is called the Gregorian Calendar in honor of Pope Gregory XIII and it was devised in 1582. The Pope revised and perfected the Julian Calendar that Julius Ceasar had worked out in the year 46 B.C.
The Julian Calendar used 12 months per year. Each year had 365 days.
Each year actually includes, besides the 365 days, an extra 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds. Every four years that amounts to an extra day. So every fourth year we celebrate a leap day. February gets the extra day making 29--still the shortest month.
To further complicate things, the Georgian Calendar skips Leap Days that fall on the hundredths years, except when that year number can be divided by 400. So, did the year 2000 have a February 29th?
Our next Leap Year will be 2008.
To remember the number of days in each month learn this little poem :
Thirty days have September,
April, June, and November.
February has twenty-eight alone.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except in Leap Year, that's the time
When February days are twenty-nine.
