Leaping into March

The Independent Record staff is providing you with five papers in February this year. Leap year occurs every four years with Feb. 29 being designated as Leap Day. For us to print five papers in February, the 1st and the 29th had to fall on a Thursday, which is very rare.

But what is a leap year?

According to NASA, although our calendars usually consist of 365 days, it actually takes approximately 365.2422 days for Earth to orbit the sun.

Research indicates that in 45 B.C., Roman emperor Julius Caesar, with the help of astronomer Sosigenes, decided to add one day to every four Februaries to make up for this discrepancy. However, there was an error in their calculations, which was later fixed in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, who removed 10 days from the month of October that year to more accurately reflect a year’s length.

Some sources point out that if we didn’t have Leap Day, our calendars would be off by 24-25 days every century, or every 100 years. Our equinoxes and summer and winter solstices would no longer align with the seasons.

Leap year fun facts include:

• 4 million people in the world are leap day babies

• Leap day babies are called leapers or leaplings

• There is a one in 1,461 chance of being a leap day baby

• Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year

• Women often choose this day to propose marriage to men

• There are 525,600 minutes in a typical calendar year. On leap years, there are 527,040 minutes. What are you going to do with the extra 1,440 minutes this leap year?

Make it count!