February 2024 |
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11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
Leap Day 2024!
February 29, 2024
Simply put, a leap year is a year with an extra day—February 29—which is added nearly every four years to the calendar year. Adding an extra day every four years keeps our calendar aligned correctly with the astronomical seasons, since a year according to the Gregorian calendar (365 days) and a year according to Earth’s orbit around the Sun (approximately 365.25 days) are not the exact same length of time. Without this extra day, our calendar and the seasons would gradually get out of sync.
Here are the rules of leap years:
A year may be a leap year if it is evenly divisible by 4.
Years divisible by 100 (century years such as 1900 or 2000) cannot be leap years unless they are also divisible by 400. (For this reason, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 were.)
If a year satisfies both the rules above, then it is a leap year.