Episode 1033
February 29
Sun, 2020-Mar-01 02:04 UTC
Length - 3:01
Direct Link
Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a popular Wikipedia page every day.
With 449,520 views on Saturday, 29 February 2020 our article of the day is February 29.
February 29, also known as leap day or leap year day, is a date added to most years that are divisible by 4, such as 2016, 2020, and 2024. A leap day is added in various solar calendars (calendars based on the Earth's revolution around the Sun), including the Gregorian calendar standard in most of the world. Lunisolar calendars (whose months are based on the phases of the Moon) instead add a leap or intercalary month. In the Gregorian calendar, years that are divisible by 100, but not by 400, do not contain a leap day. Thus, 1700, 1800, and 1900 did not contain a leap day; neither will 2100, 2200, and 2300. Conversely, 1600 and 2000 did and 2400 will. Years containing a leap day are called leap years. Years not containing a leap day are called common years. February 29 is the 60th day of the Gregorian calendar in such a year, with 306 days remaining until the end of the year. In the Chinese calendar, this day will only occur in years of the monkey, dragon, and rat.
A leap day is observed because the Earth's period of orbital revolution around the Sun takes approximately six hours longer than 365 whole days. A leap day compensates for this lag, realigning the calendar with the Earth's position in the Solar System; otherwise, seasons would occur later than intended in the calendar year. The Julian calendar used in Christendom until the 16th century added a leap day every four years; but this rule adds too many days (roughly three every 400 years), making the equinoxes and solstices shift gradually to earlier dates. By the 16th century the vernal equinox had drifted to March 11, and the Gregorian calendar was introduced both to shift it back by omitting several days, and to reduce the number of leap years via the aforementioned century rule to keep the equinoxes more or less fixed and the date of Easter consistently close to the vernal equinox. Leap days can present a particular problem in computing known as the leap year bug when February 29 is not handled correctly in logic that accepts or manipulates dates. For example, this has happened with ATMs and Microsoft's cloud system Azure.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 02:04 UTC on Sunday, 1 March 2020.
For the full current version of the article, see February 29 on Wikipedia.
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This has been Matthew. Thank you for listening to popular Wiki of the Day.
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