Surprising Time and Calendar Facts

The ancient Romans used a calendar with only ten months, excluding January and February, until 713 BC.

A 'leap second' is occasionally added to Coordinated Universal Time to account for Earth's slowing rotation.

In Samoa, Friday, December 30, 2011, did not exist when the nation skipped a day to align its time zone with major trading partners.

The modern Gregorian calendar was first instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to correct the Julian calendar's inaccuracies.

There is a Mars calendar, which is used to track time on the surface of Mars, where a day, called a 'sol,' is about 24 hours and 39 minutes long.

The word 'hour' comes from the ancient Egyptian word 'hōra,' a unit of time used to measure the 12 hours of daylight.

Despite February 29th being a rare occurrence, babies born on this day can celebrate their actual birthdays only once every four years, known as 'leaplings'.

The longest year in history was 46 BC, with 445 days, due to the insertion of months to realign the Roman calendar with the seasons.