What the Heck Is Leap Day?

Leap Day is happening this year, 2016, as it does every four years, but why do we have it?

Here is the reason from Timeanddate.com:

Leap years are needed to keep our modern day Gregorian calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun.  It takes the Earth approximately 365.242189 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds – to circle once around the Sun. This is called a tropical year, and is measured from the March equinox. However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a leap day on February 29 nearly every four years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by around 24 days!

Things that you can do with the extra day? A bed & breakfast in Orange County is offering a special promotion to mark Leap Day.

There is also an Irish tradition that says Leap Day is the one day that a woman can propose marriage. Anyone seen the Amy Adams movie Leap Year? In the movie she goes to great lengths to meet up with her boyfriend in Ireland to propose to him. In this day and age, women don't need to wait for a specific day to propose, but lengths she goes to in the movie is pretty interesting.

Leap Days to look forward to:
Sunday February 29, 2020
Thursday February 29, 2024
Tuesday February 29, 2028