Although the widespread knowledge is that the year always has 365 days, in reality it lasts slightly longer; exactly 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45.25 seconds longer. Therefore, this adjustment is made to prevent astronomical and chronological dates from no longer coinciding.
THE LEAP YEAR WAS CREATED IN RESPONSE TO THE DIFFICULTIES IN SYNCHRONIZING THE CIVIL, RELIGIOUS AND AGRICULTURAL CALENDARS WITH THE SOLAR YEAR.
To explain this measure we must look back more than two millennia, when it was discovered that the calendar was not entirely aligned with the solar year.
Emperor Julius Caesar decreed a "year of confusion" of 445 days (46 B.C.) to correct at a stroke the deviation that had been occurring for years. He then established a 365.25-day year that added a leap day every four years.
This made the calendar year about 11 minutes shorter than its solar counterpart, so the two diverged by a full day every 128 years. Over time, these discrepancies led to changes in such important dates as Christian holidays.
Pope Gregory XIII found this situation untenable, and presented his calendar in 1582. After eliminating ten days from a year to put an end to the imbalance, he established that leap years were not leap years if they were multiples of 100, unless they were also multiples of 400.
For this reason neither the year 1800 nor 1900 were leap years, but the year 2000 was. And for this same reason neither the year 2100 nor 2200 will be leap years.
This new calendar, named the Gregorian calendar, was mandatory for Catholics, but Protestants continued with the old one. And the Russians did not accept it either.
The fact that this extra day is added in February is due to the fact that the calculation depends on the winter solstice and the distance of the moon from the Earth. Without the leap year, humans would not be able to follow the cycle of nature.
THE BAD REPUTATION THAT'S HAUNTED LEAP YEARS
The popular imagination agrees on the bad reputation over these years. The coincidences in life, they tend to have a higher density of dramatic events. In fact, 2020, the previous leap year, was the year of the COVID pandemic.
These beliefs go back a long way and date back to pre-imperial Roman culture, which linked February to the dead and to pain and, therefore, the second month of the year was lived with fear.
But it is always in our power to change things, to turn the statistics around and adopt a different approach. We are living a year that gives us one more day, one more day to enjoy, to make the most of it and to turn opportunities into reality.
