BRYAN, Texas — As some people know, 2020 will be a leap year, meaning an extra day is added on to February this year.
As we head into the 29th this Saturday, we figured it was best to learn why this is even a thing.
Okay, so most people know the earth orbits the sun every 365 days right?
Well, it actually takes 365 and one fourth day for us to go around the sun so every four years, we get an extra full day.
That’s to get the Gregorian calendar synchronized with the solar year.
At least we don’t have a whole leap month, though!
Ancient Romans used to add an extra month to the year every few years because the roman calendar was 355 days.
To sync it with the solar year, the month was added, but that got a little out of hand.
Julius Cesar, now known as the ‘father of leap year’, along with some astronomers decided add the extra day every four years.
It’s a little complicated but there’s something pretty sweet about leap days.
For hundreds of years, there’s been a tradition of women proposing to men on leap days in places like Ireland
There’s only been about 108 leap days ever, and the chances of being a leap day baby, or "leapling," are small!
Like, 1 in 1,461 small!
That might be a good thing, considering some states don’t even use the 29th for official documents!
A lot of the time, they default to March 1st.