Why is a Leap Year Necessary? ... 2012 is a leap year, which means that it has 366 days instead of the usual 365 days that an ordinary year has. ... Rules for Determining a Leap Year

A leap year occurs every four years to help synchronize the calendar year with the solar year, or the length of time it takes the earth to complete its orbit about the sun, which is about 365¼ days.

To make a calendar a better measure of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, leap year rules were created and have since been modified.

Why is a Leap Year Necessary? ... 2012 is a leap year, which means that it has 366 days instead of the usual 365 days that an ordinary year has. ... Rules for Determining a Leap Year

A leap year occurs every four years to help synchronize the calendar year with the solar year, or the length of time it takes the earth to complete its orbit about the sun, which is about 365¼ days.

As a former employee of the Royal Greenwich Observatory let me assure you that there is no additional leap day in millenium years. ... In fact one year is approximately 365.2422 days. Inserting an extra

To make a calendar more accurate, new leap year rules have to be introduced to the Gregorian calendar, complicating the calculation of the calendar even more.

@ February 29 LEAP Year - LEAP Day © 1995-2008 Leap Day (February 29th); @ February 29 LEAP Year - LEAP Day; (an extra day / 24 hours / 1440 minutes / 86,400 seconds) Why???;

Eventually new leap year rules will have to be introduced. However, we don’t need to worry about tinkering with Pope Gregory’s leap year rules any time soon.

This led to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 (some countries did not make the switch until 1712 or 1752), which introduced a slight twist to the usual leap year rules.