Today, 2/29/2016 is that special extra day that appears only once every four years. For some reason there are 366 days instead of the normal 365. Is this magic? Are we being tricked? Despite being part of our lives, most people know very little about it. Here are answers to some of the questions that you’ve always wondered but never asked about leap years.
Why do we have leap years?
Our measurement of a year is simply the time it takes the earth to complete one orbit around the sun. Adding an extra day to certain years is just our way of syncing and correcting the slightly imperfect measurement that we use. In case anyone wondered it actually takes 365.2422 days to orbit the sun and not 365 days which is why we have to have the extra day sometimes.
Why February?
So we get that we need an extra day, but why is it on February? Why does February have less months than other months anyway? The answer is simply due to bitterness. We use the Gregorian or Roman calendar which was established by Emperor Julius Caesar. If anyone noticed, the months are actually named after old Roman emperors which can understandably cause some jealousy when some months have more days than others. The successor, Emperor Caesar Augustus decided to take two days off February and put it on his month, August, which until then only had 29 days.
Why 4 years?
Technically, it isn’t every four years. The year 2000 was a leap year but the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years. The general rule to leap years is there is a leap year every four years EXCEPT for those that are both divisible by 100 but not divisible by 400. It’s confusing but that’s just a measure to correct the over correction of every four years. Math nerds will get why.
What in the world is a leap second?
Leap seconds are not related directly to leap years but they are basically used for the same thing. Both are an attempt to correct our time with the sync of astronomical events. In the case of leap seconds it corrects time to sync with the rotation of the earth. Atomic clocks are the most perfect form of time keeping we currently have but earth’s rotation is actually slowing down. We need leap seconds to keep everything on time otherwise the loss of seconds will add up to loss of minutes and hours.
What about people who were born on leap years?
People who were born on leap years are called “leapers” or “leaplings.” Some people only celebrate on their actual date once every leap year while others just choose to either celebrate on either February 28th or March 1st. Most governments will auto default on whichever your time of birth was closer to if they need an actual specific date for something.
Women propose on leap years?
This is most likely based on the old Irish tradition of women asking men to marry them. Back in the day women complained that men took too long to propose, so St. Patrick allowed women to propose to men on February 29th. Another tradition states that men could not refuse a woman’s marriage proposal if asked on February 29th, but this is less common.
Do you have any useless facts about leap years?
You bet we do. Both U.S. Presidential elections and summer Olympics always fall on leap years because they too occur every four years. February 29th also marks “rare disease day” for obvious and slightly humorous reasons. Anthony, TX is the self proclaimed leap year capital of the world and they even throw a massive party and parade for all the leap year babies. Finally, if you have a fixed annual salary, a leap year day is just one extra day that you normally wouldn’t have to work to get that salary. This actually sparked a huge debate in many countries on whether leap year days should be considered a national holiday.
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