Leap Year doesn’t always occur once every four years. For example 1900 wasn’t a leap year.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – Finally, leap day children can have cake on their actual birthday. This year, don’t forget that the shortest month of the year is actually a day longer and that there are a lot of people out there who are anxious to celebrate their once-every-four-years birthday.
Babies born on the 29th of February are even more special than those born in the first minutes of the 1st of January. The main reason is that the 29th of February only comes once every four years, or even more.
The method of calculation is a bit overwhelming, to say the least. In order to determine which year will be a leap one, one must check if the year’s number is divisible by four. If the leap year is divisible by one hundred, that it must also be able to be divided by four hundred.
For example, the millennial 2000 can be evenly divided by both one hundred and four hundred. By comparison, 1900 wasn’t, nor will 2100, 2200 or 2300.
The leap year exists because it takes our planet roughly 365.242199 days to circle the sun. The 0.242199 is cumulated in an extra day that is added approximately once every four years to the calendar.
The total amount of time that the Earth spends rotating around the Sun is called a tropical year. The calendar that we use today is called a Gregorian calendar. In order to keep it in sync with the actual time spent on our planet traveling around the sun, the leap day was added.
Finally, leap day children can have cake on their actually birthday this year. Because having a birthday once every four years or so can be rather frustrating at times, the leap year-born community has created an on-line club here.
The website has up to 10,000 members from around the world. Apart from being a sort of exclusive society, they tackle subjects like legal difficulties that may arise in the case of leap year-born people.
But it’s mostly a fun community that even features a Leapzeum, a museum with all sorts of stuff related to Leap Day.
For example did you know that the extra day was added in February because this used to be the last month of the year?
Or that the people born in 1884 had to wait ten years in order to celebrate their next birthday because 1900 was not a Leap Year?
Finally, leap day children can have cake on their actual birthday this year. Happy Birthday, you special people!
Image Source: www.wikimedia.org
Melissa Gansler
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