Leap Days Are Awesome!

Jack Till

Ah, leap days. You can’t say that they aren’t awesome, because they are! But how were they created? And what are some fun facts we should know about leap days? I’ll answer those questions with another. Where do we start?

I guess we can start at the, uh, start. In Egypt, sometime during the reign of the empire, people were like “Hey, why don’t we make a calendar with 365 days?” Of course, it had one season. Summer. 3,000 years later, and Julius Caesar decided to plagiarize off of the Egyptians with one change. Seasons were added, and so was complexity. A year is actually around 365.25 days, so one day was being added every four years. This would eventually make summer happen during winter. Luckily, Julius Caesar fixed that by adding 1 day every four years. This fixed the problems. Well, most of the problems.

 

Notice how I said a year was about 365.25 days. There was still a problem. In 1582. Luckily, a smart dude NOT named Julius Ceaser (his name was Aloysius Lilius [also he was dead when the calendar reform came out]) noticed this and said, “Aw yeah, it’s big brain time.” He did some calculations and told the Pope to make every year divisible by 100 NOT a leap year, but allow years that were divisible by 400. This was (very close to being) PERFECT! We still follow these rules today. 

 

That was how the leap day was brought into existence! Now, here are some fun facts all about leap days!

 

  • 4 million people in the world are leap day babies.
  • Leap day babies are called leapers or leaplings.
  • There is a one in 1,461 chance of being a leap day baby.
  • Quite a few famous people were born on February 29th, such as Ja Rule and Pope Paul II.
  • There will be 8 years between leap years 2096 and 2104.
  • Getting married in a leap year is considered bad luck in Greece, so one in five engaged couples try to avoid it.
  • Some cultures didn’t have leap year on Feb 29th, such as Britain and some other countries. Instead, February 24th occurred twice.

Well, it seems like that is all you need to know about leap years! They have a rich history, were edited by some pretty smart dudes, and if you are born on a leap day, you have a chance of becoming FAMOUS! So yeah, all you need to know. Oh, I almost forgot. Always remember that Leap Years Are Awesome!