Century leap year thus the leap day February 29 in those years always falls on a Tuesday (dominical letter BA). The Gregorian calendar yields an average year that currently tracks the annual revolution period of the Earth more closely than the older Julian calendar, in which every fourth year (including end-of-century years) is a leap year. The Julian formula adds too many leap days (3 every 400 years), causing the Julian calendar to drift gradually with respect to the astronomical seasons. Over time, natural events such as the spring equinox began to occur earlier and earlier in the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar
Leap year Leap year A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year containing one additional day (or, in the case of lunisolar calendars, a month) added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, calendars that have the same number of days in each year drift over time with respect to the event that the year is supposed to track. By inserting (also called "intercalating") an additional day or month into the year, the drift can