Are you ready for 2024? It is a leap year! Leap years keep our calendars in check! Let us explain why leap years are necessary and share some fun folklore surrounding them. Simply put a leap year is a year with an extra day - Februay 29 - added nearly every four years to the calendar year.
Adding an extra day every four years keeps our calendar aligned correctly with the astronomical seasons, since a year according to the Gregorian calendar (365 days) and a year according to Earth’s orbit around the Sun (approximately 365.25 days) are not the same length of time. Without this extra day, our calendar and the seasons would gradually get out of sync. (Keep reading for a longer explanation.)
Because of this extra day, a leap year has 366 days instead of 365. Additionally, a leap year does not end and begins on the same day of the week as a non–leap year does.
How Do You Know If It’s a Leap Year?
Generally, a leap year happens every four years, which, thankfully, is a relatively simple pattern to remember. However, there is a little more to it than that.
Here are the rules of leap years:
- A year may be a leap year if it is evenly divisible by 4.
- Years divisible by 100 (century years such as 1900 or 2000) cannot be leap years unless they are also divisible by 400. (For this reason, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 were.)
If a year satisfies both the rules above, it is a leap year.
So to celebrate this auspicious date on the calendar please join us at The Australian Hotel, Cnr of Adelaide and Alice Streets Maryborough for lunch at 12 noon. Having lunch is not complulsory and it a convenient way to have a get to gether in a place with airconditioning given the extremely hot weather we have been experiencing. We have been able to book the private room for the event.