NORFOLK, Va. — Get excited, everyone! 2020 is a leap year and some of your favorite holidays are set to line up perfectly.
A leap year is a calendar year that contains an additional day (366 days as opposed to 365). The leap day generally occurs in February. Instead of February having 28 days, it has 29 days.
Notable holiday line up for 2020:
- Valentine’s Day is a Friday
- Cinco De Mayo is on a Tuesday (Taco Tuesday, anyone?)
- July 4 is on a Saturday.
- Halloween is on a Saturday.
- Christmas is a Friday
- The New Year will start with a three day weekend, since January 1, 2021, falls on a Friday.
Leap years generally happen every four years. According to timeanddate.com, three things must be taken into account in order for a year to be identified as a leap year:
- The year can be evenly divided by 4;
- If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
- The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
The Gregorian Calendar, which is the one we use, is the most widely used calendar in the world. It consists of 12 months of irregular lengths. This modern-day calendar followed and replaced the Julian Calendar created by Julian Caesar.
“This means that in the Gregorian calendar, the years 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years,” the site reported.
Multiple sites claim the Julian Calendar was replaced because it did not accurately reflect the actual time it takes the Earth to orbit around the sun.
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