February 29

It's February 29, the extra day to compensate for the remaining six hours of the solar year not accounted for by the calendar for the previous four years! Here are some fun facts about Leap Day you can amuse your friends with!

An extra day every four years to keep the calendar accurate was a Roman innovation. In 45 B.C. (the Roman year 709), Julius Caesar decreed that an extra day be added at the end of February, then the last month of the year, on a quadrennial basis. The Julian calendar, as it was thus called, was adopted by the Christians centuries later, but with January 1 as the start of the year.

The Julian calendar was slightly off, running eleven minutes and fourteen seconds longer than the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun. By 1582, the calendar was off by ten days, causing Pope Gregory XIII to drop that number of days from the year. He figured out that if only end-of-century years with numbers divisible by 400 (1600, 2000), and not all end-of-century years, were leap years, it would keep the calendar accurate to the minute going forward. (Great Britain and its colonies didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.)

February 29 falls on the same day of the week once every 28 years, except between years ending centuries that lack a leap day, skewing this cycle by as little as twelve years and as much as forty years. Example: February 29 fell on a Wednesday in 1888, but the lack of a leap day in 1900 meant that it would fall on a Wednesday again in 1928 - forty years after. February 29 fell on a Sunday in 1896, but without a leap day in 1900, it fell on a Sunday again a mere twelve years later, in 1908.

February 29 will fall on a Wednesday again in 2040.

The entire Gregorian calendar repeats itself every four hundred years, according to Wikipedia. This works out to 20,871 weeks with 97 leap days. In this period , February 29 falls thirteen times on a Sunday, Tuesday, or Thursday, fourteen times on a Friday or Saturday, and fifteen times on a Monday or Wednesday. When February 29 is observed in an end-of-century year after 1582 (1600, 2000, et. al.), it always falls on a Tuesday.

February 29 falls on different days of the week in this order, except when end-of-century years with numbers not divisible by 400 interrupt the cycle: Tuesday, Sunday, Friday, Wednesday, Monday, Saturday, Thursday.

People have a 1 in 1,461 chance of being born on February 29 and thus having birthdays only once every four years.

British subjects born on February 29 legally turn eighteen on March 1 of the relevant year.

Among celebrities who were born on February 29: actress/singer Dinah Shore (1916-1994); actor Alex Rocco and astronaut Jack Lousma (born 1936), actor Dennis Farina (born 1944), and; motivational speaker Tony Robbins (born 1960).

February 29 is also the day women propose to men. Right. I don't think any woman is going to propose to me in a million (four million?) years. And on that note, I think I'll wrap things up.