Leap year most years that are multiples of 4 are leap years. In each leap year, the month of February has 29 days instead of 28. Adding one extra day in the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a period of 365 days is shorter than a tropical year by almost 6 hours. Some exceptions to this basic rule are required since the duration of a tropical year is slightly less than 365.25 days. The Gregorian reform modified the Julian calendar's scheme of leap years as follows: Over a period of four centuries, the accumulated error of adding a
Calendar reform months and replaced the intercalary month with an intercalary day to be inserted within February every four years. This produced a noticeably more accurate calendar, but it had an average year length of 365 days and 6 hours (365.25 d). This had the effect of adding about three-quarters of an hour every four years. The effect accumulated from inception in 45 BC until by the 16th century the northward equinox was falling on March 10 or 11. Under Pope Gregory XIII, the leap year rule was altered: century years which are not divisible by 400 would be common years. So