What Is a Leap Year?

You probably know that 2012 is a leap year. And that means that this year we get an extra day on February 29th. Great--an extra day. Who really cares? Well, leaplings (people born on Leap Year Day of a previous year) care, because they finally get to celebrate their actual birthday. But for the rest of us, it’s just a day like any other day. So why do we go to all the trouble to have a leap year? Epipheo shows you how, based on astronomy, the Gregorian Calendar uses leap year to keep us in tune with the su