Leap Year comes around once every four years.
It’s the result of the fact that it actually takes the earth roughly 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to orbit the sun. In order to make up for the time we lose each year by ignoring those nearly 6 hours left after the New Year’s Eve ball drops, we throw an extra day onto the calendar every four years (except when we don’t… but that’s a lot more info than you probably care to read right now).
Here are some more random facts about Leap Years for inquiring minds:
- You have a roughly 1/1461 chance of being born or giving birth of February 29th.
- Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, instituting the addition of the Leap Year. Adding an extra day to the calendar every four years seemed so ridiculous to the British back then that they joked it was “a day when women should trade their dresses for ‘breeches’ and act like men.” (It was a different time, folks.) By the 1700s, some early feminists took that notion to heart and began using February 29th to propose to the men in their lives. That tradition went on to become what is still widely known as “Sadie Hawkins Day.”
- The movie “Leap Year,” released in 2010 starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode, pokes fun at the “Sadie Hawkins Day” tradition.
- Leap Day has eerie ties to the Salem Witch Trials. The first arrest warrants connected to the trials were posted on February 29, 1692.
- In 1928, Harry Craddock invented the “Leap Day Cocktail.” Check out the recipe below!
1 dash lemon juice
2/3 gin
1/6 Grand Marnier
1/6 sweet Vermouth
Shake, serve, & garnish with a lemon peel
Looking for a fun way to celebrate Leap Day with your kids?
Spend some time together making these Origami Leap Frogs – you can make them hop, race, and bounce into cups!
