Leap Year - The Significance of Feb 29th!

A Leap Year which is also know as intercalary year or bissextile year is an year containing one or more extra days in order to keep calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. The Earth's seasons repeat once every tropical year (the time it takes the Earth to complete an orbit around the Sun). This is about 365.2422 days long, so a consistent 365-day calendar year would over time cause the seasons to slowly drift. By occasionally inserting an additional day into the year, making it 366 days long instead of the usual 365, this can be corrected. In the Julian and Gregorian calendars, which is used by most of the world, this "intercalary" or "bissextile" day is added to February, making it 29 days long instead of the usual 28 days.

February 29 is a date that occurs only every four years, in years evenly divisible by 4, such as 1988, 1996, 2008 or 2016 (with the exception of century years not divisible by 400, such as 1900). This extra day of the year is also known as the Leap Day.The rule specified by the Gregorian calendar for leap years is as follows:

A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4, unless it is divisible by 100 and not by 400.

Without leap years, the seasons would start one day earlier on the calendar every four years. After 360 years, the 21st of March (the usual start of spring) would come in winter, on what would otherwise be the 21st of December.

A number of countries use a lunar calendar (based on the moon). They have leap years when they add an extra lunar month. Different calendars add the extra month in different ways.

However, now you have an extra day in your year to add on to your New Year's Resolutions!, if any.