Leap Day: Why we need it every four years

That’s right, 2016 is a leap year, which means we get to enjoy a whole extra day of February, and people born on February 29 finally get some presents. This period is often rounded up to 365 and a quarter days – although even the Greek astronomer Hipparchus realised over 2,000 years ago that this was a generous approximation – and so to keep our years aligned and reassuringly predictable, a leap day is added to the calendar every four years to allow for the accumulation of those otherwise overlooked four extra quarters. “They say ‘we don’t have that date on the calendar this year'”. Keen on celebrating Easter close to the spring equinox every year, the Pope took matters into his own hands and revised the calendar.

According to legend, St. Brigid of Kildare decried to St. Patrick how ladies had to wait too long for potential suitors to Wednesday them.

Madison Kent never really thought about her birthday as a big deal. Click through to learn five facts about Leap Day – like why there even is one in the first place! The onesies say: “The odds of being born on Leap Day are 1 in 1,461”.

However, I think this Leap Baby thing just might be like the Fountain of Youth.

“We get to carry that the rest of our lives”, she said.

Q: Besides asking for old court files, why else do people come in the Clerk of Courts office?

Jane Pearson of Matthews is another local “leapling”.

“We have leap year because our calendar does not match exactly with Earth’s orbital period of the earth around the sun”, Schuler explains.

“I remember in kindergarten he came home crying because his teacher told him his birthday wasn’t on the calendar”, said his mom, Heather Ruger.

When it isn’t a leap year, I get teased for not having a real birthday.

What kind of Leap Day celebrations are there?

James Milne Wilson, a former premier of Tasmania, was born February 29, 1812, and died February 29, 1880, and in 2012 a 100-year-old man died on what was technically his 25th birthday.

The menu atJack Rose’s Allagash Leap Day Bash, which runs from 5 to 8 p.m., includes 2013 versions of the ME brewery’s Confluence, Fluxus and Interlude, and 2015 kegs of Curieux, Interlude and James Bean.

Check out Google’s homage to leap year. But every fourth year was 366 days long to approximate the solar year: the Earth’s orbit around the sun, which is 365.2422 days.

Without Leap Day, the calendar would be off by 24 days each 100 years.

Q: What’s the most annoying question people have asked you about your Leap Year birthday?

Are you a leap year baby, born on February 29? Her brother, London Baker, is a leap year baby, so she saw that as a good sign. However, Duncan said she doesn’t feel that way. Which makes it 176 years old Monday-or is that 43? Her aunt took it upon herself to take care of Duncan because her mother couldn’t and her grandmother was busy with her mother. “I also had trouble getting served on nights out because they said my birth date on my passport didn’t exist”, she adds.

“Since I was a kid they always said, ‘You don’t have a birthday, ‘ ” says Tom Woodcock. So that’s how a minority of people ended up not having an actual birthday three out of every four years.

“Birthdays are so important to children and so parents (of leaplings) should designate a birthday for children such as the last day of the month and let it be special to them”, Duncan said.