Sunday December 29, 2019 ~ WORLD
~ West Shore Voice News
A Leap Day, February 29, is added to the calendar during leap years. This extra day makes the year 366 days long – not 365 days, like a common year.
The next leap day is Saturday February 29, 2020, making 2020 a leap year.
The last Leap Day was on February 29, 2016.
Leap days are needed to keep the world 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.
Without an extra, or intercalary, day on February 29 nearly every four years, we would lose almost six hours every year. After only 100 years, a calendar without leap years would be off by approximately 24 days in relation to fixed seasonal days such as the vernal equinox or the winter solstice.
=== NOTES:
- Calendar info source for this page: www.timeanddate.com
- Near the end of his fourth term in office, the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau went for his famous walk in the snow on February 28, 1984 and announced the next day — on the infrequently occurring February 29 — he would not run again. It was, in part, a way to prevent people from regularly celebrating the anniversary, but also to draw attention to the singularity of the decision.