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3. A Mistake was Made

After Caesar’s decree, the priests who had devised the new calendar made a mistake. Rather than a leap year happening every four years, a leap year would occur every three years. It didn’t take very long for them to realize that this system would not work at all, and so a correction had to be made.

In 8 BC, Emperor Augustus introduced the corrected calendar so that leap years would happen every four years.

romans and leap years ROMAOSLO / Getty Images

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