Five facts about leap year

WINNIPEG — February 29 comes around once every four years, so whether it’s your birthday, anniversary or you’re needing that extra day to get ahead of your chores, it’s time to celebrate leap day.

Why leap year exists

Feb. 29  is an add-on day that’s needed to keep the calendar in alignment with the earth’s movement around the sun. According to the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies, the Earth takes 365.24 days to make a complete cycle around the sun. Every four years, therefore, the world would be a full day out of synch with the calendar.

Roman general Julius Caesar introduced the first leap year over 2,000 years ago. However, his math wasn’t quite right and he created too many leap years. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII saw the flaw (a yearly surplus of 11 minutes), and introduced the Gregorian calendar.

Now leap year does not always occur every four years, it only happens on years that are divisible by four (except for years that are both divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400). For example, the year 2000 was a leap year, but the year 1900 wasn’t because it was divisible by 100, and not 400.

Leap year babies

The chances of having a leap birthday are one in 1,461. People who are born on February 29 are referred to as “leaplings”, or “leapers”. In non-leap years, many leaplings choose to celebrate their birthday on either February 28 or March 1.

There are nearly five million leap year day babies around the world, and every now and then a celebrity or fictitious character joins the ranks. Here are a few notable examples:

• Superman
• Ja Rule, musician
• Antonio Sabato, Jr., soap opera actor and model
• Henri Richard, NHL player for the Montreal Canadiens
• Cam Ward, Canadian NHL goalie
• Dinah Shore, singer, actress and television host
• Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, prominent French general during the Seven Years War
• Tony Robbins, self-help guru and motivational speaker

READ MORE: The hassles of being a leap year baby

Historical events

• The first warrants of the Salem witch trials were issued on February 29, 1692.
• Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American woman to win an Oscar on February 29, 1940. She was awarded for her role in Gone With the Wind.
• In 1986, British astronomer Dr Jocelyn Bell Burnell announced the discovery of the first pulsar, a star which emits regular radio waves.
• Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau resigned from the leadership of the Liberal Party on On February 29, 1984.
• During an anti-apartheid anti-demonstration in Cape Town, South African archbishop Desmond Tutu was arrested alongside 100 of his fellow clergymen in 1988.
• In 2004, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all 11 of the categories it was nominated for at the 76th Academy Awards – tying Titanic and Ben Hur for the most Oscar wins.
• Davy Jones of the band The Monkees passed away on this day in 2012.

 Official leap year capital of the world

In 1998, the town of Anthony in Texas, USA, declared itself to be the ‘Leap Year Capital of the World’, after a resident who was born on Feb. 29, 1932, petitioned the governors of Texas and New Mexico to make the title official. Since then, the town has been throwing birthday festivals every leap year for people born on the day.

Why does the women propose on leap day?

February 29 is a traditional holiday when women propose to men, according to British tradition. The legend says in the fifth century Ireland, St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about the fact that women had to wait for men to propose. So Patrick allowed women one day every four years to take the initiative.

Now the tradition has seeped into modern pop culture. This idea is the story behind a 2010 movie, Leap Year, starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode.

With files from the Canadian Press