Although the Julian calendar was the dominant European dating system for more than 1,600 years, its solar year measurements (365.25 days versus the more precise 365.2422 days) contained a slight inaccuracy that caused the calendar’s seasonal dates to regress nearly one day per century. Pope Gregory XIII introduced calendar reforms in 1582 to correct the issue. The Gregorian calendar continues the preexisting system of leap years to realign the calendar with the Sun, but no century year is a leap year unless it is exactly divisible by 400.
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