Why TAKE A LEAP?
Leap years are added to the calendar to keep it working properly. The 365 days of the annual calendar are meant to match up with the solar year. A solar year is the time it takes the Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun — about one year. But the actual time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun is in fact a little longer than that—about 365 ¼ days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be precise). So the calendar and the solar year don't completely match—the calendar year is a touch shorter than the solar year.
It may not seem like much of a difference, but after a few years those extra quarter days in the solar year begin to add up. After four years, for example, the four extra quarter days would make the calendar fall behind the solar year by about a day. Over the course of a century, the difference between the solar year and the calendar year would become 25 days! Instead of summer beginning in June, for example, it wouldn't start until nearly a month later, in July.
WHO TOOK THE FIRST LEAP?
The Egyptians were the first to come up with the idea of adding a leap day once every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year. Later, the Romans adopted this solution for their calendar, and they became the first to designate February 29 as the leap day.
LEAP DAY FUN FACTS
* Persons born on leap day, February 29, are called "leaplings" or "leapers."
* According to the Guinness Book of Records, the only verified example of a family producing three consecutive generations born on February 29 is that of the Keogh family.Peter Anthony was born in 1940, his son Peter Eric in 1964 and Peter's daughter Bethany Wealth in 1996.
* NEXT LEAP DAY - MONDAY, FEBRURAY 29th - 2016
* Every year that is divisible by four is a leap year.
* The US Presidential elections are held during Leap Years
* Every February 29th, NO MAN IS SAFE, it’s okay for a woman to buck convention and propose marriage to the man of her choice. If the man refuses, he then is obligated 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.
SO......ARE YOU A LEAPER or A LEAPLING?
