Florence couple celebrates Leap Year wedding anniversary
Staff reporter
Leap years were added to the calendar to add a necessary day so the calendar would match up with the solar year.
A solar year is the time it takes the Earth to complete its obit around the sun — about one year. The actual time it takes the Earth to travel around sun is in fact a little longer than that — about 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds.
It may not seem like much of a difference but after a few years those extra quarter days in the solar year add up. After four years, for example, the four extra quarter days would make the calendar fall behind the solar year by about a day. During the course of a century, the difference between the solar year and the calendar year would become 25 days.
The Egyptians were the first to come up with the idea of adding a leap year. Later the Romans adopted this solution and it became designated Feb. 29 as the leap day.
Leap Year Day also has become known as the day women can ask men on dates or even to marry.
