Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Doctor RJ, rfall, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man with guest editor Chitown Kev and Magnifico. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00AM Eastern Time. Special thanks to JekyllnHyde for the OND banner. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Special thanks to JekylinHyde for the OND banner.
Leap Year 2016: Why does February have 29 days every four years?
The Telegraph UK
Why do we have leap years?
A leap year, where an extra day is added to the end of February every four years, is down to the Gregorian calendar's disparity with the solar system.
A complete orbit of the earth around the sun takes exactly 365.2422 days to complete, but the Gregorian calendar uses 365 days.
So leap seconds - and leap years - are added as means of keeping our clocks (and calendars) in sync with the Earth and its seasons.
Julius Caesar vs Pope Gregory
The Roman calendar used to have 355 days with an extra 22-day month every two years until Julius Caesar became emperor in the 1st Century and ordered his Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes to devise something better.
Sosigenes decided on a 365-day year with an extra day every four years to incorportate the extra hours, and so February 29th was born.
In 46 BC, Julius Caesar, featured here in a self-decreed minted coin, created a calendar system that added one leap day every four years.