It’s a Leap Year Today!

February is a strange little month, which is the only one of the 12 months that has an extra, or leap day, every four years. 29th February 2012 will be a day to be remembered for those leaplings celebrating their first official birthday after 4 years.

So what is a leap year? A leap year is to keep the modern Gregorian calendar synchronized with the celestial cycles that frame it which means Earth’s revolutions around the sun. So to account for those extra ticks and keep the calendar in tune with the sun's rotation, we have Leap Day, Feb. 29, every four years.

How does it work?

The simple answer is: Yes. Think of leap year as the little trick the world uses to make up for lost time. According to some website, it is famously known as quarter-day puzzle. By saying this, it simply means Earth orbits the sun every 365.242 days which is not an easy number for a calendar to accommodate.

The solution is: Thus, many cultures since ancient times have taken on the practice of adding extra days, or even months, to round out the calendar year. In a nutshell, the troublesome one-quarter day was accumulated and added into February every four years. If only we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours every year.

Hooray! The sticky calendar conundrum is solved. I guess this would be the simplest elucidation I can find to understand the leap year. To be frank, I myself find views on leap birthdays gamut can go mild to wild.

And before I forget, “Happy Birthday Leaplings”. Finally, you get to celebrate your official birthday