Published Feb. 29, 2004 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
What comes around every four years, gets a lot of intense media coverage and usually involves confusing figures and charts?
No, not the election – I’m talking about Leap Year. That’s right, on Feb. 29 we can all celebrate the fact that there is a Feb. 29.
It goes like this. It takes about 365 and ¼ days for the earth to revolve around the sun. We usually round that down to 365, but that only works for a while before we start getting snow in July. Therefore, almost every fourth year the world corrects its time system by adding a day to the calendar – Feb. 29. These are called Leap Years. Yadda, yadda – something about years that end in ’00 – yadda, yadda – Julius Caesar – blah, blah, gravity.
Wait a minute. Don’t you go reading that article on the other page now. This is a big deal.
For about 1 out of every 1,461 people, that means birthdays only come once every four years. If you were born on Leap Year 1960, you would be only 11 years old – no matter what your thighs look like. According to the Web site www.mystro.com/leap, about 187,000 Americans have Leap Year birthdays.
Fans of “The Pirates of Penzance” know Leap Year is a really big deal. It doesn’t take the very model of a modern Major-General to tell you that coordinating a major astronomical correction like this could not have been easy. (This paragraph probably baffles about 95 percent of our readers, but 19th Century opera purists no doubt weep with joy). I’ll let Paulucci Planetarium director Marc Rouleau explain the history of Leap Year in today’s Accent section, but sufficed to say it was quite an effort.
Many famous people celebrate Leap Year birthdays. For instance, hip-hop artist Ja Rule turns 7 (well, 28) today. Big band brother Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey would be celebrating their birthdays today if it weren’t for their unfortunate passing. The father of the modern submarine, John Phillip Holland, also entered this world on Leap Year Day.
I also read with interest that Feb. 29 is “Sadie Hawkins Day,” a time when women are “allowed” ask men to marry them. Sadie Hawkins is a man-chasing character from “Lil’ Abner,” a comic strip that was at one time popular, but that now would probably offend people if anyone actually got the jokes. (One sample punch line to a Lil Abner strip reads, “Ef a nice fat one scoots in, ah’ll keep him fo’ mahself.”) Granted, context is everything – I’m sure I would understand Lil Abner if I really, really needed to. Fortunately, we have more relevant things to concern ourselves with now, such as “Fear Factor: Couples Challenge.”
Anyway, Sadie Hawkins Day remains an option for those blessed with a fence-sitting man friend. The role-reversal tradition actually dates back to 5th century Ireland. If there had been a comic strip in 5th Century Ireland, the punch line might have read: “Bíonn dhá insint ar scéal agus dhá leagan déag ar amhrán.” (HA! Crazy Gaelic humor!)
The other nice thing about Leap Year is that it only comes around every four years. Journalists can only do so much Internet research on the revolution of the Earth around the sun before their tiny brains reboot with that Macintosh computer “BONG!” noise.
Did you know that Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar in 1582, bringing about our modern temporal system?
BONG!