2024 is a leap year: understand what this means

Next year, 2024, it's a leap year, that is, it will have more days than normal, which happens rarely.

Leap years have existed since the Roman Empire and require adaptations from human beings, since the days of the year differ.

2024 is a leap year and you need to prepare for it. So, check out what that means below!

What are leap years?

THE leap year, how will it be 2024, takes place every four years and lasts 366 days, unlike the others that last 365 days.

The inclusion of a day in the year was made with the aim of bringing the calendar closer to the Earth's translational movement.

The translational movement consists of the time it takes the planet to revolve around the Sun, which is 365 days, 5 hours and 46 seconds.

Hours that exceed 365 days are therefore compensated every four years, on February 29th.

How did the leap year come about?

A few years ago, a legend spread that the first Roman calendar was created by Romulus, the founder of Rome, and had 304 days divided into 10 months.

After some time, Romulus' successor, called Numa Pompilius, created a new calendar in which the year had 355 days and two more months.

From then on, the Roman calendar became lunisolar and also included an extra month every two years, so that it could be aligned with the solar year.

Thus, the year began in March and ended in February. Thus, each month was divided into three periods:

• Calends: first days of the month;
• Nonas: middle of the month;
• Elderly: last days of the month.

Understand the Julian calendar!

After a few years, with the distinction between the calendar of the time and the solar year, the Roman dictator Julius Caesar asked the astronomer Sosigenes to study a way to reduce the disparity.

The study was based on what had been adopted by the Egyptians and defined 365 regular days and an additional day every four years, thus creating the Julian calendar.

The Julian calendar was divided in a similar way to how we know it today, with 365 days and 12 months and, due to the fact that there was no exact definition, some months had 30 days and others 31.

Furthermore, with the end of intercalary years, the first and last months of the year became January and December, respectively.

With these changes, the seasons also began to have dates defined at the beginning of the month, that is, the eighth day before the beginning of the months of April, July, October and December.

What was the Year of Confusion?

After the adoption of the Julian calendar, there was still a problem: an 80-day difference in relation to the solar year.

To solve the problem, Julius Caesar determined that the year 46 BC would have 455 days and this year became popularly known as the Year of Confusion.

2024 is a leap year: understand how the calculation is done

The first calculation of leap years was defined during the Julian period. The astronomer responsible for the study suggested adding a day every four years to the month of February.

After Julius Caesar died, not all leap years occurred every four years, some occurred every three years, which created an excess of days.

To overcome this excess, Emperor Augustus Caesar determined that between 12 BC and 8 BC there would be no leap years in the Julian calendar.

From then on, with the change to the Gregorian calendar, the calculation was adopted that leap years should be divisible by four.

This would avoid further discrepancies with the solar year. The calculation therefore includes that years ending in 00 (multiples of 100) would only be leap years if the result of division by 400 was exact.

As 2024 is a leap year, it will be calculated based on the rules established in the Gregorian calendar.

Using this rule, the next year ending in 00 that will be a leap year is 2400. The next leap years divisible by 4 are: 2024, 2028, 2032, 2036, 2040, 4044, 2048 and 2052.

2024 is a leap year: the Gregorian calendar

In the year 1582, Pope Gregory XII made changes so that the difference between the length of the year and the calendar was reduced.

The calendar in question became popularly known as Gregorian and is the one we still use today.

The rearrangement of dates was responsible for changing the additional day for leap years from February 24th to February 29th.

Through the advice of astronomer Christopher Clavius, the Pope also determined that the day after October 4, 1582, would be October 15.

This factor reduced the 11-day difference that had occurred during the Julian period. With this, the calendar was finally adjusted.

Where does the word “leap” come from?

Because the days were counted backwards, there were three days left until calendars, for example, and the additional leap day was included in February.

This decision was established by Julius Caesar, who said that there should be a repetition of the sixth day before calendars March (March 1st), “repeating” February 24th.

From this, the term leap year emerged, which means twice six.

February 2024 will have more days

As 2024 is a leap year, therefore, February will have an extra day. The extra day in February was established as a way to honor Emperor Caesar Augustus.

To carry out the tribute, the month of Sextilis became known as Augustus (August).

However, this date only had 30 days and so that the consecration would be similar to that previously made for Julius Caesar, it was decided that there would be an extra day in August.

To make this possible, the solution was to take a day off February, which already had one less date due to the repetition of leap years.

Therefore, February had 28 days in common years and 29 in leap years.

Conclusion

Through the facts presented throughout the text, it is possible to see that for the Gregorian calendar to be defined as we know it today, numerous changes were necessary.

Now that you understand why 2024 being a leap year, check out the calendar next year to start preparing for your arrival.