Facts about the Leap Year For Kids

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• A leap year is a year containing one additional day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year.
• Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, a calendar that had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track.
• For example, in the Gregorian calendar, February in a leap year has 29 days instead of the usual 28, so the year lasts 366 days instead of the usual 365.
• Similarly, in the Hebrew calendar, Adar Aleph, a 13th lunar month is added seven times every 19 years to the twelve lunar months in its common years to keep its calendar year from drifting through the seasons.
• Adding an extra day to the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a period of 365 days is shorter than a solar year by almost 6 hours.
• The Gregorian Calendar therefore omits 3 leap days every 400 years, omitting February 29 in the 3 century years that are not also integer multiples of 400.
• The Gregorian calendar was designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter.
• The Roman calendar originated as a lunisolar calendar and named many of its days after the syzygies of the moon: the new moon and the full moon.
• In 1825, Ideler believed that the lunisolar calendar was abandoned about 450 BC by the decemvirs, who implemented the Roman Republican calendar, used until 46 BC.
• The religious festivals that were normally celebrated in the last five days of February were moved to the last five days of Intercalaris.
• The Julian calendar, which was developed in 46 BC by Julius Caesar, and became effective in 45 BC, distributed an extra ten days among the months of the Roman Republican calendar.
• Other feasts normally falling on February 25–28 in common years are also shifted to the following day in a leap year.
• The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years that are integer multiples of four, except for years that are integer multiples of 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900.
• In the Chinese calendar the leap month is added according to a rule which ensures that month 11 is always the month that contains the northern winter solstice.
• Buddhist calendars in several related forms (each a simplified version of the Hindu calendar) are used on mainland Southeast Asia in the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
• In some places the tradition was tightened to restricting female proposals to the modern leap day, February 29, or to the medieval leap day, February 24.
• In some situations, March 1 is used as the birthday in a non-leap year since it is the day following February 28.

Stats about leap years for kids

• Percent of the population born on leap day (February 29th) 0.274%
• Number of people worldwide born on February 29th 4,791,239
• Number of babies born on February 29th in the U.S. 10,800
• Actual number of days it takes the earth to revolve around the sun 365.242199