Leap Year/Day Fun "Facts"

The earth turns 365.2422 (about 365 days and six hours) times on its axis by the time it completes a full year’s orbit around the sun, which means periodically the calendar has to catch up, thus leap years. A leap year contains one extra day (24 hours), Feb. 29, for a total of 366 days, and 2012 is a leap year

Julius Caesar is credited with creating the leap year in 45 B.C. Pope Gregory XIII refined the calendar in 1582 with the rule that leap days would only occur in years divisible by four and century years divisible by 400. The calculation is meant to accommodate the length of a year being just less than 365.25 days.

A leap year is any year whose date is exactly divisible by 4 except those which are divisible by 100 but not 400.

In a normal sequence of years, a calendar date that falls on a Monday one year will fall on Tuesday the next, Wednesday the year after that, Thursday the year after that, and so on. But every fourth year, thanks to the extra day in February, we “leap” over the expected day of the week — Friday, for example — and that same calendar date lands on Saturday instead.

People born on leap year get a special name, leaplings or leapers. In days gone by, people believed these little leaping babies were harder to raise and were more prone to sickness.

The likelihood of being born Feb. 29 is 1 in 1,461.

Most leap-day babies celebrate birthdays Feb. 28, rather than March 1, since the day falls in their birthday month.

There was also a belief that changing the calendar by adding an extra day wreaked all kinds of havoc in nature. Farmers thought it messed up the growth of crops and cattle. In the words of the Scots, “Leap year was never a good sheep year.”

Folks also had a saying that beans and peas planted during a leap year grew the wrong way. (Not sure what the “wrong way” is?)

Folklore claims that on leap day, it’s acceptable for women to propose to men. The legend may have originated out of fifth-century Ireland when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait too long for skittish men. What was St. Patrick’s solution? Once every four years, a woman could pop the question. If a man refused, he had to buy her lavish gifts — among them rumored to be 12 pairs of gloves so the woman could hide her embarrassment of having a diamond-less left hand. Another penalty for a man’s refusal – “Any man who refused such a proposal owed his spurned suitor a silk gown and a kiss — provided she was wearing a red petticoat at the moment she popped the question.”
This legend is also linked to Sadie Hawkins dances, where women traditionally ask men for dates.