Leap year, the extra day that is added to the end of February, is needed to keep the calendar in alignment with the earth’s revolutions around the sun. Then again, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days a year, so if we didn’t add the extra day to February every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off track by approximately 24 days.
Here are some other facts about leap year.
- The chances of having a leap year birthday are 1 in 1,461
- People born on February 29 days are called leaplings
- There are only about 4 million people in the world who have been born on Feb 29.
- The tradition of woman proposing to men on leap year days date all the way back to the fifth century. The tradition started in Ireland.
- There was a movie called (leap year) in 2010 about a woman asking her life long lover to marry her.
- Egyptians were the first people to add a day every four years more than 2000 years ago.
- Egyptians also figured out that earth takes a little longer than a year to travel around the sun; 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to be exact.
- The Romans designated February 29 as Leap Day. It was adopted in the 16th century when the Gregorian calendar calculations said to include a leap day in years only divisible by four [e.g., 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024.]
