In 46 BC Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar to bring the civic year in line with the solar year. According to Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins in their Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome, "From 1 January 45 BC he made the year consist of 365 days, with the months containing their present numbers of days. Caesar also introduced the leap year by inserting an extra day between 23 and 24 February. It was originally every three years, then corrected to four years from 8 BC. The resulting Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar) was about 11 minutes longer than the solar year." The modern Gregorian calendar is essentially the same as the Julian calendar except the extra day is

February 29th

Higgledy-Piggledy
This year is leap year and
Time to intercalate
Day twenty-nine;
Romans first added the
Supernumerical
Dies bissextilis,
Made up some time.

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