Leap Year Literacy

A leap year comes once in four years, or after every (365×4=1460) days.

It’s always at the end of February (the 29th to be precise).

People who were born on February 29th are called leapers or leaplings. People who were born on February 29th in Lapland might be known as Laplander leapers, or for short Lap leapers.

In case you have never heard of Lapland, and are too embarrassed to ask, here is a Google map for you.

People are always being born. So I guess about 1/1460 (or 0.0685%) of everyone born is born on the leap year.

On the other hand, I have over 4000 friends on Facebook and only one admits to being born on February 29th (Happy Birthday EK!). Of course, it’s statistically possible to have less (or more) than the exact ratio. I’m guessing I have a few more, but they have chosen to state their birthdays as February 28th or March 1st. After all, why wait four years for everyone to remember you exist?

Dinah Shore was born on February 29th, 1916. She became a famous singer. I am including a video, in case you haven’t heard of her and are too embarrassed to ask. And if you don’t know the guy who is singing with her, then you should be embarrassed.

When you are young, it must be difficult to wait four years to have a birthday. But as we get older (and older), having a birthday once in four years is not such a bad idea.

In some cultures, February 29th is the best (and only) day in which a girl can ask a guy to marry him. Turning such an offer down is not kind, unless you have a very good excuse, such as having become engaged the day before.

The Gregorian calendar that we follow was set up mostly by the Romans. They decided which month would have more days, which less. That was almost 2000 years ago. There are few people still around from that time that we can ask, so it’s hard to know why some months have 30 or 31 days and February only 28. On the other hand, Mel Brooks was 2000 years old back in 1967. But that was a long time ago. He must be at least 2059 by now. We should ask him!