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What Is The Point Of A Leap Year?

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    Dividing time up into an acceptable calendar is something that we take for granted now but this was a real challenge for ancient people. The Egyptians, five thousand years ago, divided each year into twelve different moths and each month was divided into a different number of days. They took each year to be 365 days, but the rotation of the Earth around the Sun actually takes 365 and a quarter days. That meant that every four years, an extra day occurred.

    This day was added in to every fourth year, which was called a leap year, and was added to the shortest month of the year – February. In a leap year, February has 29 days instead of the usual 28.

    The point of a leap year is therefore convenience, a way of matching up the calendar year and the solar year so that we keep to time, but don't notice the extra day.
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    Kath18 

    answered 3 years ago

    I have some great leap year facts here... leap years are great!
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    11thstudio

    11thstudio

    commented 2 years ago

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