Happy Leap Day! Here are a Few Leap Year Fun Facts

It takes 365.242199 days for the earth to complete a full rotation around the sun. Our calendar, however, marks out a mere 365 days a year.

To fix things, we add one extra day to the calendar once every four years to keep it in sync with the earth’s revolutions around the sun.

If we didn't add a day every four years, our calendars would be off by 25 days in the course of 100 years!

To commemorate this rare but important day, here are a few fun facts about Leap Year:

• Julius Caesar introduced Leap Year around 45 BCE.
• Feb. 29 is traditionally a day where women are “permitted” to romantically pursue men. The tradition dates back to 5th century Ireland when St. Bridget lamented to St. Patrick about the "fair sex having to wait for men to propose." As a result, Patrick declared that Feb. 29 is the day that would be set aside when women can ask men for their hand in marriage.
• On Feb. 29, 1860, Herman Hollerith invented the first electric tabulating machine – the forerunner to the modern calculator.
• Hattie McDaniel was the first black person to win an Oscar. McDaniel won Best Supporting Actress for her role as "Mammy" in Gone with the Wind. The awards ceremony took place on February 29, 1940.
• The chances of being born on a Leap Year are 1 in 1,461.

Famous Leap Year Births:

• 1792: Italian opera composer Gioachino Rossini (he turns 220 years old today)
• 1916: Singer Dinah Shore
• 1920: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Howard Nemerov
• 1924: Cleveland Indians 3rd Baseman Al Rosen
• 1976: Rapper Ja Rule

For more fun trivia on Leap Year, click here.