Feb. 29: Looking Into Leap Year Lore

Unless you happen to have a birthday on Feb. 29, Leap Year may not matter much to you. But for those Leap Year birthday folks, they can only “officially” celebrate their birthday every four years. Most leap year birthdays are celebrated on March 1 or Feb. 28. 

Not many famous people have had their birthdays on Feb. 29 of a Leap Year, but here are a few names you might recognize: Pope Paul III, born in 1468; Dinah Shore, American singer, born in 1916; Ja Rule, the American rapper and actor, born in 1976; and Chris Conley, American musician and songwriter/composer, born in 1980.

The concept of leap years came about during the Roman Empire, but the Romans over-calculated the number of leap years needed. When the Gregorian calendar was developed, that snafu was corrected, and we still use that formula today.

It’s said that on Feb. 29 in a leap year, men are 'fair game' for women to proactively approach. So if you’re hankering after a guy, and he won’t ask you out, now’s your chance to call him up for a date.

The tradition of women romantically pursuing reluctant males during leap years began in 5th century Ireland, when St. Bridget asked St. Patrick to make it possible for women to propose to men. Patrick set Feb. 29 aside as the one day that would allow women the right to ask for a man's hand in marriage.

The popular “turn-about” holiday, Sadie Hawkins Day, was created by Al Capp in the cartoon strip Li'l Abner. Sadie and all other woman in town were allowed—only on Feb. 29 of a leap year—to catch the most eligible bachelors in Dogpatch.

Likewise, both and just hosted winter/turn-about dances this Saturday.

You may be wondering, why celebrate this offbeat event? This Patch writer does not know siccum about leap year, so an astronomy expert was consulted.

resident John Newcomer, a member of the St. Louis Astronomical Society, shed some light on Leap Year and why it is necessary. 

”I’ll start with two short definitions,” said Newcomer. “‘One day’ is the time it takes for the Earth to rotate once on its axis. ‘One year’ is the time it takes for the Earth to revolve once around the Sun.

365 days is almost, but not quite, one year. It's actually short by about six hours. One year is 365.24219 days. If we did not add leap days into the calendar, the seasons would eventually start to drift away from what we normally expect. With no leap years, in about a century, our future Rockwood students would have their "winter break" at the time the leaves are changing color, and it would be icy cold during "spring break." Eventually, ‘summer break’ would be the coldest part of the year."

Newcomer said an example of this "drift" is probably close by. "If you have an Islamic friend or classmate, ask him or her in what season is ‘Ramadan.’ Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which is based on the moon rather than the sun, so it gets earlier in the year each time around. Over their lifetime, they will experience Ramadan in every season.”

In the next couple of paragraphs, Newcomer gets into the technical nitty-gritty about how Leap Years are determined. “To keep our calendar in sync with the seasons, we add a day every fourth year with this rule: If the year number modulo 4 is 0, it is a leap year, otherwise it is not. "Modulo" simply means to divide, but only take the remainder. For example, 2012 modulo 4 is 2012 divided by 4, which is 503 with no remainder, so this *is* a leap year. This rule gives us a 'calculated' year of 365.25 days, which is close, but still slightly different from the way our solar system works."

So, there is another rule called the "Century Rule," he said: "If a 'century year' (1900, 2000, 2100, etc) modulo 400 is 0, then it is a leap year; otherwise it is not. By following this rule, the year 1900 was not a leap year, but 2000 was. 2100 will not be a leap year. With these two rules for adding leap days, our calculated year is 365.2425 days. The 'error' between our calendar and the tropical year will be kept to less than one day for more than 1,000 years into the future.”

Editor's Note:  Our thanks go to John Newcomer and the St. Louis Astronomical Society for information about Leap Year. Founded in 1937, S.L.A.S. is one of the largest astronomical societies in the area. Check out S.L.A.S. programs by clicking here to their website.