Have you ever wondered, why do we have leap year? What is this extra day on the calendar even for?

 You think that the year has 365 days in a year as the modern day calender says, but really the time it takes for the earth to go around the sun is not exactly 365 days. It is roughly 365.2421 days and the famous February 29 is a day to catch up on lost time. It is necessary to add this leap year because over time that missing time will catch up to us in the end.

 The Egyptians where one of the first to calculate the need for this leap year, but it wasn’t practiced in Europe until Julius Caesar. Before this was found out, the Roman calendar operated on a lunar model that often required adding a extra month!

Next time leap year rolls around, be thankful for the time saved by the Egyptians.