{"id":1351,"date":"2020-02-29T03:00:40","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/?p=1351"},"modified":"2020-02-23T23:40:04","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T04:40:04","slug":"leap-day-fun-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/leap-day-fun-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Leap Day – Fun Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Leap
Image by Mike Dibos<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve never met anyone born on Leap Day, but a friend of mine and his twin brother came really close. My friend John was born on February 28, 1956. A few hours later and he would have been celebrating his 16th<\/sup> birthday today instead of having celebrated his 64th<\/sup> yesterday. In actuality, the odds of being born on Leap Day are 1 in 1,461.<\/p>\n

Leap Day happens almost every four years. Did you notice I said \u201calmost\u201d? Years that end in \u201c00\u201d but aren\u2019t divisible by 400 don\u2019t have a Leap Day. Most of us will never see it in our lifetime. The last time this happened was the year 1900. We won\u2019t skip Leap Day again until the year 2100.<\/p>\n

So why the weird finagling with the calendar? \u00a0We know the earth orbits the sun approximately every 365\u00bc days. It\u2019s this \u201capproximately\u201d that messes us up. The real number is 365.242189. So if we skip Leap Day three times every 400 years, we hit it right on.<\/p>\n

A few other fun facts about Leap Day:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 People born on Leap Day are called \u201cleaplings\u201d or \u201cleapers.\u201d In Hong Kong, the legal birthday of a leapling is March 1. In New Zealand, it\u2019s February 28.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 There\u2019s a club for people born on February 29\u2014The Honor Society of Leap Year Babies. The club has more than 10,000 members worldwide.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 One in five engaged couples in Greece will avoid marrying during a leap year because they believe it\u2019s bad luck.<\/p>\n

\"Proposal\"
Image by Steve Howard<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

4.\u00a0 In Finland, it\u2019s supposed to be good luck for a woman to propose on Leap Day. If her boyfriend refuses her proposal, he is required to pay her a fine\u2014enough fabric to make a skirt.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 In Ireland, the man who refuses a Leap Day proposal must buy her a silk gown.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a movie about it. In the 2010 romantic comedy Leap Year<\/em>, a woman travels to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day, which tradition says he has to accept.<\/p>\n

So, ladies, if you\u2019ve gotten tired of your special someone to propose, today\u2019s your day. For everyone else, however you choose to celebrate this holiday that comes around only once every four years, have fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve never met anyone born on Leap Day, but a friend of mine and his twin brother came really close. My friend John was born on February 28, 1956. A few hours later and he would have been celebrating his 16th birthday today instead of having celebrated his 64th yesterday. In actuality, the odds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[78,80,76,79],"class_list":["post-1351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-days","tag-february-29","tag-fun-facts","tag-leap-day","tag-proposal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1356,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}