Happy Leap Day, CHS. Every four years, we experience a leap year. A leap year contains an additional day, February 29, making it ~366 days long instead of the usual 365 — well, 365.25 days, to be more accurate. That means you can take a sunset walk on the beach or explore a new dining spot in the Holy City.
Astronomically long story short — this extra day is added to the calendar every four years to keep it synchronized with the Earth’s revolutions around the sun. Without leap years, our calendar would gradually fall out of sync about one-quarter of a day behind the solar year.
Basically, our current calendars would be off by ~501 days — so Feb. 28, 2024, would actually be July 13, 2025, or the middle of summer, according to the handy time calculator. Pretty weird, huh?
So, what do you plan to do with these extra 24ish hours this year? If you need some ideas, start here.