Today, Thursday, February 29, is Leap Day or Leap Year Day, an extra day that comes around almost every four years where the Gregorian calendar is in use.
While some see this as just another day, others make frog jokes and leaplings, those with a Leap Day birthday, have extravagant once-in-four-year birthday parties. Some think of the 2010 movie “Leap Year,” which follows a woman who travels to Ireland to follow the Irish tradition that allows women to propose marriage to men on that one day.
Here’s a quick primer on what you need to know about Leap Day today.
WHY DO WE HAVE LEAP DAYS AND LEAP YEARS
Let’s start with some definitions, courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA for short.
A year is the amount of time it takes a planet to orbit its star one time. In our case, it’s the planet Earth rotating around the Sun. A day is the amount of time it takes a planet to finish one revolution on its axis.
Because it actually takes Earth 365 days and six hours to orbit the Sun, and Earth makes one complete rotation on its axis every 23 hours and 56 minutes, we have to account somehow for those pesky four minutes. Because of that, we round the days in a year down to 365 as opposed to 365.242190, but that 0.24219 day doesn’t quite disappear. To keep the cosmic books balanced, we then put four almost quarter days together (the almost quarters are 5 hours 48 minutes and 56 seconds, to be exact) every four years in the form of a leap day, and… voilà!
[Editor’s Note: In the interest of time and space, no pun intended, we won’t delve into what exactly happens to that extra .00781 of a day but let’s just note that leap seconds are a thing as well plus we also skip over some leap years, following the rule that, if the year is divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400, the leap day is skipped. For example, the year 2000 was a leap year, but the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not. The next time a leap year will be leaped over will be the year 2100.]
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO ON FEBRUARY 29, 1924
To celebrate, we’ve prepared a look back at news and headlines from exactly one hundred years ago today, Friday, February 29, 1924.
Perhaps the biggest news was that Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, a German general and politician who achieved fame during the First World War for victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914, took the stand in his defense in the Beer Hall Putsch trial in Munich. The Putsch was the failed coup d’état attempted by Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP leader Adolf Hitler.
“I fought rule by Red or Jew,” he said in testimony, explaining that “[W]e want a Germany free of Marxism, semitism, and papal influences.”
In other news that day, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia increased its troop presence on the border of Bulgaria across from Pernik, in response to raids from Macedonian irregulars from the region, the Indianapolis Star reported, and a Chicago Daily Tribune headline read: “Fall of Belgian Cabinet Halts Dawes Exports.”
It was also the height of Prohibition so headlines such as “SEIZE ‘MOONSHINE LIBRARY’; Philadelphia Police Find Books and Formulas in a Raid” and “SEIZE 300 GALLONS OF ALCOHOL IN RAID; Alleged Bootleggers of Jefferson Street Fought Raiders, Latter Say” were not uncommon in the New York Times.
Finally, the Star also reported that “[A] carrier pigeon was delivered today to William Borheck, wealthy Long Island City merchant, with a note that unless he tied $1,000 to the bird’s leg and released it, his life would be in danger.”
Moving the focus back to 2024, in Oklahoma, a soon-to-be centenarian – Mary Forsythe, who was born on February 29, 1924 – is about to celebrate her 25th birthday on Thursday. It’s estimated that ca. five million people worldwide have a Leap Day birthday.
LEAP DAY GIVEAWAYS AND SPECIALS
As is the custom, many companies are offering Leap Day and Leap Year specials this year. Doughnut purveyor Krispy Kreme is offering all customers a dozen of the free deep-fried toroidal pieces of dough for $2.29 (get it?). For those who were born on February 29, however, the deal is even sweeter: those lucky few, who only get to celebrate a birthday once every four years, will get a free doughnut and no purchase is required.
Wendy’s is giving customers free Cinnabon Pull-Apart cups during breakfast hours, while supplies last. No purchase is required but the company is limiting the free warm, buttery dough bites that are baked together with cinnamon and topped with cream cheese frosting to one per drive-through customer or one per dining-room patron.
Chipotle is giving members of its loyalty program free guacamole with the code EXTRA24 (get it?).
Finally, Legal Sea Food is selling pairs of 1 pound Gulf of Maine steamed lobsters for just $29, Paris Baguette is offering a cup of coffee for $0.29, and leaplings can get a special Birthday Treat Bear from the Build-a-Bear Workshop for $4.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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