This year is a leap year

While I was looking at this blog, thinking what to write after many days of idle, I saw the last date of my post, February 29, 2008. Then I remembered that this year is a leap year since the last day of February was 29. I am very thankful to the date because of it I wrote this post.

What is leap year, anyway?

According to the ultimate source in the web which is Wikipedia, a leap year is a year containing one or more extra days order to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical or seasonal year. For example, in the Gregorian calendar, February would have 29 days in a leap year instead of the usual 28.

Why?

Because, according to Wikipedia, seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of full days, a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected.


So that's the rationale behind this leap year. Now, I know. Hehehe...