How did a leap year come about???

Question

who invented this stupid idea? any suggestions?

Answer 1

24 hours for the earth to rotate

1 day = 24 hours

Time it takes Earth to complete a revolution around the Sun isn't divisible by 24 hours, so the extra time (about 6 hours) is pressed into service every 4 years.

Answer 2

it's a correction and is necessary because an astronomical year is not 365 full days, but 365 days and something

so by adding a day every 4 years, the calendar is kept in sync with the planets and stuff

Answer 3

Because a year is actually 365 1/4 days, so we have an extra day every 4 years to make up for it. This system is almost EXACTLY accurate. I only know of 1 adjustment. Rememer like a year or two ago? It was on the news that they had to add 1 second to the year because after hundreds or thousands of years of use or whatever the system had become 1 second off.

Answer 4

Because the Earth doesn't actually take an even 365 days to go around the Sun.  It's about a quarter day over.  

If we didn't do it the seasons would slowly drift.

Answer 5

isn't the Mayan calendar supposed to end on leap day 2012?

its like the KNEW it meant trouble

spooky

Answer 6

Alot of people have diffrent Ideas about who made the calendar, and most of them are backed by facts. But the leap year started later on, when everyone realized it shouldn't be snowing in july. Because although its just a day for us. If we didn't have it after awhile we would be having christmas in spring. Just be glad we're not in the 1700's were the british had the smart idea of cutting 12 days from their calendar to try and fix the mistake. Let's just hope your birtday was on one of those day.

Answer 7

the other answerers were correct. Our calandar is broken up into 365 even days in a year, and that is wrong. The earth orbits the sun in exactly 365.2425 days or approx. 365.25.

This leaves 1/4 of a day build up every year.

Every 4 years our seasons would shift by 1 day. Over the course of 600 years or so, without leap year, our seasons would completely reverse.

Answer 8

Try this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/leap_year