There is no doubt that even the most familiar things in life have huge capacity to surprise you. The calendar as simple and as regular as it is surprises us nearly every four years. It adds an extra day giving us 366 days instead of the much familiar 365 days. This addition is built into the calendar in alignment with the earth’s movement around the sun.

Why leap day?
According to www.history.com, the actual time it takes the earth to orbit its solar is slightly longer than 365 days. In actual fact, it is 365.2421 days and while this difference might seem negligible, that little difference make a lot of difference over decades and centuries (Little things count, don’t they?). So to ensure consistency with the true and complete astronomical year, it is important to periodically add an extra day to make up the lost time and get the calendar back in synch with the correct conditions of the stars.

Shortly after Caesar, the great emperor was enthroned, he engaged the help of philosopher Sosigenes of Alexandria to modify the solar calendar in use which featured 365 days and an occasional intercalary month which was usually inserted when astronomers observes the correct conditions of the stars.
The modification done by Caesar and Sosigenes was to add a day to the second month of the year every 4th year. This was what gave birth to a leap day. This calendar called the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar) took effect from January 1st, 45 BCE.

By 16th century, scholars observed that time was still slipping because of Caesar’s over estimation of the solar year by 11minutes. This over estimation affected the date of Easter by roughly 10 days. The little problem created mandated Pope Gregory XIII to commission another modification of the calendar. This modification kept the leap day in the Julian calendar but accounted for the inaccuracy by eliminating leap day on centurial years not divisible by 400. This elimination is why 1700, 1800, 1900 were not leap year but 2000 was.

1. The modified calendar which is used in most part of the world was therefore named after Pope Gregory XIII who introduced it in October 1582. The calendar was promptly adopted by Spain, Portugal and Italy while Great Britain (including a part that is now United States of America) adopted it in 1752.
2. Every year that is divisible by 4 is a leap year. If it is divisible by 100 but not by 400, it will not be a leap year. E.g. 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 are leap years. If the year marks the turn of the century, it will only be a leap year if it is also divisible by 400. E.g. 1900, 2000 was a leap year but 2100 won’t be.
3. Those born on leap days i.e. those born on 29th of february are called Leaplings. A leapling can celebrate his or her birthday either a day before their real birthday (28th of February) or a day after (March 1st). In New Zealand, the official birthday falls on 28th February on non leap years while it falls on March 1 in the United Kingdom.

Source: http://loftycentre.com.ng/2020/02/29/happy-leap-day-3-important-facts-about-the-leap-day-you-should-know/

This story long gan ni ooo

Interezting...HAPPY LEAP DAY..im leaping into my breakthrough this day!