Leap Year

So it is a leap year and today is leap day and I have been thinking all day that I should be blogging about it since, you know, I won't be able to do that again for another four years. Problem was, though, that I didn't really have anything to say. I mean I don't really have any strong feeling toward or against the day and don't really do anything to observe it as a special day. But after continuing to mull over the need to blog about it today, I decided to look up some facts about leap year and post them here--and actually the facts are kind of interesting.

Why there are Leap Days? Leap days, technically known as intercalary days, are calendar corrections. Despite what you have been taught, there are not 365 days in a year. There are precisely 365.2425 days, which means we gain a day every four years. An exception: Century years cannot be leap years unless they are evenly divisible by 400.

Inventor of Leap Day: In 45 B.C., Emperor Julius Caesar added a Leap Day occurring every four years to the calendar he created. Until then, calendars were a mess.

Guinness World Record leapers:

Norway's Henriksen family has the most siblings born on Leap Day — Heidi (1960), Olav (1964) and Lief-Martin (1968).

Most generations of one family born on Leap Day — Peter Anthony Keogh was born in 1940 in Ireland. Son Peter Eric Keogh was born in 1964. Grandchild Bethany Wealth came along on Leap Day 1996.

BBC News points out that those of you who receive an annual salary are working an extra day without extra pay. (Where's the fairness in that?)

The city of St. Petersburg, Fla. was incorporated on Feb. 29, 1892.

One Orlando man is celebrating leap year in a unique way. Brian Feldman will be leaping from the top of a 12-foot-high ladder at Orlando City Hall - 366 times. (HUH??? WHY???)

Did you know there was a Feb 30? But only one in the 1700s in Sweden. So what about all those poor babies born on that day? Go here to read more details about this.

So there it is, my post on leap year.