Happy Leap Day! Why do we have leap years in the first place?

We define a year to be the amount of time it takes for the Earth to make one complete orbit around the sun. A normal year is defined as 365 days. However, if you measure the exact amount of time it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun, the number is actually 365.242199 days. By adding one extra day to every fourth year, we get an average of 365.25 days per year, which is close to the actual number. To get even closer to the actual number, every 100 years is not a leap year, but every 400 years is a leap year. That brings the average length of the year to 365.2425 days, which is very close to the actual number.

Putting all of these rules together, you can see that a year is a leap year not only if it is divisible by 4, but it also has to be divisible by 400 if it is a centurial year. So 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 was.

A Norwegian family named Henriksen from Andenes holds the official record of number of children born on February 29. Mrs. Karin Henriksen gave birth to 3 children on consecutive February 29; her daughter Heidi in 1960 and her sons Olav and Leif-Martin in 1964 and 1968 respectively.

Some famous people born on February 29 include:

• 1468 – Pope Paul III (d. 1549)
• 1792 – Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer (William Tell, The Barber of Seville) (d. 1868)
• 1896 – Morarji Desai, former Indian prime minister (d. 1995)
• 1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer (d. 1994)
• 1924 – Al Rosen, American baseball player
• 1924 – Carlos Humberto Romero, former president of El Salvador
• 1960 – Anthony (Tony) Robbins, American motivational speaker
• 1964 – Lyndon Byers, Canadian hockey player
• 1972 – Antonio Sabàto Jr, Italian-born actor
• 1976 – Ja Rule, American rapper and actor
• 1980 – Chris Conley, American musician and songwriter/composer

Single guys beware!  According to an old Irish legend, or possibly history, St Bridget struck a deal with St Patrick to allow women to propose to men – and not just the other way around – every 4 years. This is believed to have been introduced to balance the traditional roles of men and women in a similar way to how Leap Day balances the calendar.