Leap Day, which happens every four years and is the main attraction of Leap Year, is coming up Feb. 29. While many may view the extra 24-hour period as just another winter day to overcome in the quest to reach the promised land of spring, the editorial staff at Current Publishing recently got to wondering about Leap Day and Leap Year.

First off, we knew vaguely that Leap Day is needed every once in a while to allow human time to sync itself with the movement of the planets, but other than that we really hadn’t given it much thought. The basic science of it – elemental as it may be as described on Wikipedia – is straightforward: The earth orbits the sun in about 365 days and six hours. So, since a day has 24 hours, an extra day, known as Leap Day, is added to the calendar every four years. The overarching purpose is to keep the seasons in proper order.

Yes, that may sound simple, but there’s more to it. Since the earth actually requires 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds to orbit the sun, every hundred years or so more time (over and above the Leap Day being added every four years) needs to be added to keep the calendar aligned with the rotation of the planets. Every 400 years, therefore, another three full days need to be compensated for, and this is where it gets a little complicated. According to Wikipedia, “years that are divisible by 100, but not by 400, do not contain a Leap Day. Thus, 1700, 1800, and 1900 did not contain a Leap Day, 2100, 2200 and 2300 will not contain a Leap Day, while 1600 and 2000 did, and 2400 will.”

As with most things, there’s also a bit of mythology and mystery that has swelled up around the rare Leap Day. (And we thank Wikipedia contributors for the following amalgamation of data.)

• For example, since 2008, the day has come to mark Rare Disease Day. Victims and their families suffering from any kind of rare disease use the day as a platform to advocate for research and treatment.

• There is a popular tradition known as Bachelor’s Day in some countries allowing a woman to propose marriage to a man on Feb. 29. If the man refuses, he is then obliged to give the woman money or buy her a dress. In Greece it is considered unlucky to marry on Leap Day.

• In literature, the day has been used as a clever plot twist. Rather than receiving an inheritance on a 21st birthday, as an example in a Sherlock Holmes mystery used, the long-suffering heir had to wait until he was 84 to finally receive the money.

• Official dates of birth can be confusing, too. Some countries use Feb. 28 for a person’s official D.O.B., while others use March 1, except, of course, during the quadrennial Leap Year.

Many events have also occurred on Leap Days of yesteryear. Here’s a few from Wikipedia that caught our attention:

1504 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Native Americans to provide him with supplies.

1796 – The Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain comes into force, facilitating 10 years of peaceful trade between the two nations.

1892 – St. Petersburg, Fla. is incorporated.

1940 – For her role as Mammy in “Gone with the Wind,” Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.

1980 – Gordie Howe of the Hartford Whalers makes NHL history as he scores his 800th goal.

1988 – South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid rally in Cape Town.

What might be most unusual aspect of Feb. 29, however, are the birthday-party-deprived people who were born on these rare days. Do they age slower than the rest of us? No, but we bet there’s a fair amount of confusion surrounding when to celebrate their big day. Should it be Feb. 28, March 1 or some other random day? Especially for kids, this sounds like an identity crisis in the making.

When Leap Year babies do celebrate they have lots of company, some of them famous. Here’s a list of those born on Feb. 29: Pope Paul III (1458), Gioachino Rossini (1792, Italian composer), Jimmy Dorsey (1904, American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader); Dinah Shore (1916, American singer and actress), Henri Richard (1936, Canadian ice hockey player), Dennis Farina (1944, American actor), Richard Ramirez (1960, American serial killer), Tony Robbins (1960, American motivational speaker), Ja Rule (1980, American rapper).

Notable people have also died on a Leap Day, including Yigal Allon (1980, Israeli general and prime minister of Israel), and three in 2012: Roland Bautista (American guitarist for Earth, Wind & Fire), Davy Jones (English singer from The Monkees), and 113-year-old Englishwoman Violet Wood.

While Leap Day is definitely full of intrigue, the only downside we can see is that coincides with the presidential election cycle, giving us yet another full day of campaign nonsense. Who’s up for shifting it a non-election year? Would the universe allow for a rotation of 2019, 2023, 2027, etc?

-John Balentine, managing editor,

@john_balentine