Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
A leap year is synonymous with a phenomenon that occurs once every four years. The year 2024 itself is leap year. So, what is a leap year and why does it happen?
For more details, see the meaning of leap year and its history below.
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What is a leap year?
Quoted from the Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI), a leap year is a year that has one day longer, namely 366 days, while a normal year has 365 days.
One additional day occurred in February. In a normal year, February has 28 days. Meanwhile, in a leap year there is one additional day, namely 29 days.
Quoted from Science National Science Olympiad Companion Book (2021)there are two requirements for a leap year.
First, A leap year is a year whose number is divisible by four. Examples of leap years are 2000, 2004, 2008, and so on.
Meanwhile, for century year numbers, a leap year is a year whose number is divisible by 400. For example, the years 1200, 1600, and 2000.
Apart from the Gregorian calendar, also known as the Gregorian calendar, several other calendars also have leap days or leap months.
For example, the Hebrew calendar, Islamic calendar (Hijri), Chinese calendar and Ethiopian calendar also have their own leap years.
However, the years on the calendar do not all come every four years. In fact, it often occurs in years that are different from leap years AD.
History of leap years
The Gregorian year is based on the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. One year AD consists of 365 1/4 days but to make calculations easier, one year AD is set at 365 days.
The remaining 1/4 of the day is then added up to reach one day and added to the Gregorian year once every four years, namely in February.
Thus, every four years, one AD year has 366 days which is called a leap year.
Quoted from the page LiveScience, leap years existed before 45 BC. It started when the Ancient Roman Emperor Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar which consisted of 365 days with 12 months.
The Julian calendar includes leap years every four years without exception and is synchronized with Earth’s seasons which consist of 15 months with a total of 445 days.
In the mid-16th century, astronomers noticed that the season began about 10 days earlier than expected when important holidays, such as Easter, were no longer accompanied by certain events, such as the vernal equinox or spring.
To overcome this, Pope Gregory
For centuries, the Gregorian calendar was only used by Catholic countries, such as Italy and Spain. Then Protestant countries, such as Great Britain, also adopted it in 1752.
Due to differences in calendars, countries that later switched to the Gregorian calendar had to skip days in order to synchronize with the rest of the world.
For example, when the British switched calendars in 1752, September 2 was followed by September 14, according to the Royal Museums Greenwich.
The Gregorian calendar may have to be re-evaluated because it is out of sync with the solar year. However, this took thousands of years to materialize.
That is an explanation of what a leap year is. Hope it is useful.
(team/juh)