Friday, February 29, 2008

It's Leap Day!

Pope Gregory XIII devised the 365-day calendar in 1582, based on how long it takes Earth to orbit the Sun. But it actually takes closer to 365.25 days. So the pope’s people added an extra day of the year every fourth February to compensate for the discrepancy. Want to be even more accurate? Earth circles the Sun in exactly 365.242199 days. To make up for that discrepancy, Leap Year is skipped every three out of four century years not divisible by 400 . . . so 2000 was a leap year, but 1900, 1800, and 1700 weren’t. Please celebrate accordingly.

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