Today- February 29th – is also known as Leap Day! It is an extra day that only happens once every four years – to make the calendar right, or something like that. I was very excited when I heard there was going to be an extra day this year as I thought that meant extra walks, extra meals and extra fun with my humans- but now it is here I realise actually it is just a normal day really like any other. Well, I am only two so this is my first leap year!

My female human though had a moan saying that for people who get paid monthly – like her and Tim- it only means an extra day at work as you work one day more than normal for your February pay. That seems a bit mean really!!

Anyway I found out some interesting facts about Leap Day- here are some of them-

1 The original Roman 355 day calendar had an extra 22-day month every few years to maintain the correct seasonal changes. By the time Julius Caesar took reign, the seasons no longer occurred during the same months they once had. This was remedied in 45 B.C. by removing the extra month and adding the extra day to a few months instead.

2 Julius Caesar proclaimed the last day of February as Leap Year Day, skipping it three out of four years. Back then, February 30th was the last day of the last month of the year, which is why he picked it. He also named a month (July) after himself!

3. In 4 A.D. Emperor Caesar Augustus corrected a counting error in Leap Years. He also had the month of August named after him, and took the last day of February so that August can have 31 days, just like Julius’ month. Now February has 29 days in Leap Years.

4. The calendar was finally perfected by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 . Pope Gregory determined that Leap Day should fall on any year divisible by 4 but not 100 (except when the year is divisible by 400). Century years were made leap years if they were divisible by 400. So, 2000 was a Leap Year, but 1900 was not. At the same time, Pope Gregory moved the end of the year to December 31st. He also moved the end of the year back two months so that Easter would occur in the spring.

5. Today our year is 365.2425 days, off from our solar year by .00031, or one day’s error over 4,000 years.

6. Leap Year was the traditional time that women could propose marriage. When the rules of courtship were stricter, women were only allowed to pop the question on one day every four years – February 29th. It is believed this tradition was started in 5th century Ireland when St.Bridget complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait for so long for a man to propose. So, according to legend, St. Patrick said women could propose on this one day in February during the Leap Year.

7. There is a Greek superstition that claims couples have bad luck if they marry during a leap year. Apparently one in five engaged couples in Greece will avoid planning their wedding during a leap year.

8. Herman Hollerith developed the first computer on Leap Day 1860. He had been a special agent for the US census, and developed punch cards and electric tabulating machines in time to process the census returns, reducing considerably the time needed to complete the clerical work. Hollerith’s venture became part of what is now the IBM Corporation.

9. Dutch scientists produced solid helium on Leap Day 1908.

10. Rossini (composer) was born on Leap Day 1792

11. Longest Reported Leap Day: Jon Hayanga Leap Year Day Baby 1960, had his birthday in Taipei one day then crossed the international date line going east and had his birthday again the next day in Spokane, WA, USA.

12. Shortest Reported Leap Day: Ed Chatfield Leap Year Day Baby 1940, crossed the date-line in a ship (going west) the night of February 28th and woke up on March 1st. So he lost his birthday entirely.

13. There was a time when Leap Year Balls happened all throughout the Leap Year. Women were given the “right” to ask a man for his hand in marriage. They were afforded a lovely place to display themselves, and propose their man of choice, at lavish and fantastic Leap Year Balls. If the man declined her proposal he had to provide her with a silk dress and a kiss on the cheek.

14. The premise of Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical The Pirates of Penzance is based on the birth of the main character on a leap day. Frederic was, as a child, apprenticed to a band of tenderhearted, orphaned pirates by his nurse who, being hard of hearing, had mistaken her master’s instructions to apprentice the boy to a pilot. Frederic, upon completing his 21st year, rejoices that he has fulfilled his indentures and is now free to return to respectable society. But it turns out that he was born on February 29, Leap Year Day, and he remains apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday (when he’s 84!).

Hmm… quite an interesting day then really – and tomorrow will be March which must mean Spring is coming!