Leap Year Fun Facts

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

People born on Feb 29 are known as Leapers or Leaplings.

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

Women can propose on this date

Because of the exact number of days in a solar year (365.242374, to be precise), it means the algorithm had to be designed such that every now and then a leap year is skipped to keep the calendar on track over the long haul.

Ironically, given that the whole point of adding an extra day to February every four years was to align the human measurement of time more closely with nature, in the past people apparently believed that changing the calendar that way might actually throw nature out of whack, and even hamper the raising of crops and livestock. It used to be said, for example, that beans and peas planted during a leap year “grow the wrong way” and, in the memorable words of the Scots, “Leap year was never a good sheep year.”

Every time there’s an earthquake, our rotation rate slightly speeds up, but that effect is swamped by the gravitational effects of the Sun and Moon on the Earth, which slow us down. In fact they slow us down by 14 microseconds per year. So over a very long time our days will get longer.

It’s been calculated that after another 4 million years go by on Earth, the day will lengthen by another 56 seconds: the exact amount necessary for a tropical year to require exactly 365 days. Rendering Leap Days unnecessary.

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