February 29 or “Leap Day” generally occurs every four years.
Leap Years are needed to keep our modern day Gregorian calendar in alignment with the Earth’s revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds – to circle once around the Sun. This is called a tropical year.
However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn’t add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!
A Leap Year can be evenly divided by 4; but if the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, except when the year is also evenly divisible by 400.
There is a popular tradition known as Bachelor’s Day in some countries allowing a woman to propose marriage to a man on February 29. If the man refuses, he then is obliged to give the woman money or buy her a dress. In upper-class societies in Europe, if the man refuses marriage, he then must purchase 12 pairs of gloves for the woman, suggesting that the gloves are to hide the woman’s embarrassment of not having an engagement ring.
Feb 29 is also National Frog Legs Day
In 1504, Christopher Columbus, stranded in Jamaica during his fourth voyage to the West, used a correctly predicted lunar eclipse to frighten hostile natives into providing food for his crew.
Composer Gioacchino Antonio Rossini was born Feb 29, 1792 in Pesaro, Italy. He composed musical pieces which are familiar today including “The Barber of Seville” (made popular by Bugs Bunny) and “The William Tell Overture” which became known as the theme song for the Lone Ranger Show .
1916 In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from twelve to fourteen years old.
An Islamic Republic was proclaimed in Pakistan in 1956.
1960- The first Playboy Club, featuring waitresses clad in bunny outfits, opened in Chicago.
1968 -The discovery of the first pulsar, a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Cambridge, England.