Given that this chance only comes around once every four years, and with the leap year date falling close to my publication day, I couldn’t miss this chance to write this article. So, here’s my article on taking the leap this leap year.<\/p>\n
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Because of the Earth’s less-than-perfect orbit of the sun, we round up our years to be 365 days long, as it really takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 56 seconds to orbit the sun (National Air and Space Museum<\/a><\/span>). Thus, every four years in the Gregorian calendar<\/a><\/span>, we add an extra day to balance our time, with this extra day being known as a leap day, or February 29th (Live Science<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It’s known by the word “leap” for the fact that from March onward, the dates of a leap year move forward by an extra day from the previous year (Live Science<\/a><\/span>). Without this time correction, our years would eventually look very different, such as Christmas<\/a><\/span> eventually appearing in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, they’d finally get a winter Christmas<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Historically, the 29th February, in Ireland, was the day women were allowed to propose to men. Women were given one day a year to break from the repressive traditions of the time (Metro<\/a><\/span>). This is meant to be known as either Bachelor’s Day or Ladies’ Privilege<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Interestingly, there are also leap seconds<\/a><\/span>. A leap second<\/a><\/span> is a one-second adjustment that is occasionally applied because of the fact the earth doesn’t spin at exactly 24 hours either. However, they’re meant to be scrapping the leap second in 2035 (Rest Less<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n