Leap years and why we need them - BBC News

It's a leap year which means there's an extra day in the calendar - 29 February 2020. But why do we need it? The answer is a little more complicated than you may think.

[sammysumer]

It is amazing how visualisations and great animations make every subject much quicker to learn.

[The_Fancy_Duck]

Febuary every four years:

"What I will ask you though is can
you just give me one more day.. I'm not
asking for a week, I'm not asking for
a month, I'm not asking for a year. Can
you give me one more day?"

[tvedits]

Watching this on 2/27/24 with the leap year

[lylymom]

Happy Leap Day to everyone! And also Happy Birthday to all people around the world who was born on the leap day 29 February!

[jfhow]

The second is defined as a fraction of the 24 hours at a point in history .
However the day itself is getting a tiny bit longer over long periods of time so a correction is sometimes needed ergo the leap second.

[NotAPacifist]

i wish i was born on february 29 so i would live four times as long as other people. delusional and bad at math.

[cinnamonstar]

when they say "we" they mean the Africans.
What they did was messed up the math in the Calendar.

The Egyptians had calculated that the solar year was actually closer to 3651/4 day. After 1, 460 solar years, or four periods of 365 years, 1, 461 Egyptian years had passed.
The reason why Western societies use 4 years is because their society don't last for 1460 years.
to have a proper leap year.. you need to have dynasties. dynasties requires LONG peace and stability.

THE 4 year is wrong, the months are wrong as well. Julia Caesar wants a month, a month was put in. Queen Victoria wants a lake, a lake was renamed
Ethiopia has the correct Christian calendar. The new year starts at the longest day of the year.

[CosmeticsComedy]

I'm living in March now, while the rest of you are leaping 🇦🇺

[Inkyminkyzizwoz]

Actually, Britain didn't adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1752, so DID have a leap year in 1700. Changing over also meant having to skip 10 days to get back in sync with where the dates should've been, but we had to skip 11 days because of having had a leap year in 1700 when we shouldn't have done

[SonnySkye]

I can answer this really easily... because our way of recording time is messed up and not accurate. The ancients got it right... why can't we????

[srishbish]

Watching this on 29th Feb 2024, very informative :)

[wmarclocher]

0:19 A day is not the amount of time it takes for the Earth to rotate once on its axis (that only takes 23 hours 56 minutes), but the time it takes to go from Solar Noon (sun at its zenith) to the next Solar noon, which takes four more minutes and therefore 24 hours.

[yanliao]

there must be something wrong at 2:02, the timeline should be 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000, then 2100 and 2200, but the video shows 2010 and 2020 followed by the 2000.

[josephfalcone]

Well happy leap year 2-29-2020
And thanks for posting this video.

[iammontecristo]

I remember learning most of this in elementary school. The only part I didn't know was the last bit

[SomeCraftive-Art]

Happy Leap Day and Leap Year 2024! It’s February 29th 2024

[hookbeak]

As a lad (60's/70's) Mother taught me this rhyme 30 days have Sept, April, June & Nov, all the rest have 31 except February alone, which has 28 days clear & 29 each leap year "

[chrisjones]

Re 13 month years of 28 days each (plus an extra 'year day' – read up on Cotsworth, folks), they might be easier for businesses but wouldn't it be boring to have your birthday on the same day of the week forever? Imagine if you were born on Monday.

[surenbono]

..we must shift to more accurate StarDate..this totally eradicate the need for leap year and its offset adjustments...this Metric Stardates only needs to be adjusted to the daily shift of earth rotational drift in millis & micro...

[somadasofficial]

This video should be 1 year and why it is showing 3 years ?