Why do we have leap year..when did it start?

Question

Why do we have leap year..when did it start?

Answer 1

We have a leap year because it does not take 365 days for the Earth to circle the Sun. We can almost correct the problem by adding an extra day every four years. We need a second correction by not adding the extra day in years that are divisible by 100 but not by 400.

Answer 2

It was started by Al Gore to fight global warming. You can do your part by petitioning Congress to make 2012 have 367 days.to make up for the February 29 2000 which was missed due to a  Y2K problem

Answer 3

It started in Roman times, with the Julian calendar, which was developed in 46 BC by Julius Caesar.  See:

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

We have a leap year with an extra day because the year is actually 365.242374 days long, not 365.

So we add an extra day in the year every four years, so we don't get our calendar out of sync with the seasons.

But 365.24237 is slightly less than 365.25, so an additional tweak was added to create the Gregorian calendar.  Every four hundred years, there are three less leap days.  1700, 1800, 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 was a leap year.

However, the Gregorian calendar is 365.2425 days in length and very very slightly too big, so another leap day may have to be removed in the next 8,000 years or so.

Answer 4

leap year adjust our calendar year to match a solar year of slightly less than 365 1/4 days.  The final tweek comes at the end of the centuries.  If they are not divisible by 400 they are also leap years.  It started with the start of the modern calendar.

Answer 5

We have leap year because the Earth's orbital period is approximately 365 1/4 days long, so every 4 years we add 1 day to make up for the difference.  There are other adjustments that occur every century, and every millennium as well.

Julius Caesar invented leap year around 45 bc.

Answer 6

really don't know