Today is also a milestone birthday for anyone born February 29, 1972. Although we may think of them as hitting 40 years old today, they are actually just 10 years old (counting 1 birthday per every 4 years).
Although it comes at an odd infrequency in our calendar, Leap Year is actually very useful. You see, our normal calendar year is 365 days long — or so we always thought. A full cycle of seasons is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds long, or about 365.25 days. Over time, the extra quarter of a day adds up. So without Leap Day, the calendar would be 1 day out of sync with the seasons. After 30 years, it would be about a week off. After 100 years, it would be nearly a month off. And so on…
In case you were curious, Leap Year has been around for 2,000 years, since Julius Caesar created the 365-day calendar. But it is Caesar’s astronomer, Sosigenes, who gets credit for adding an extra day in February every 4 years and balancing out our calendar.
So, HAPPY “10th” BIRTHDAY to all you 1972 Leap Year babies. You might look 40, but you’re still technically just an adolescent pre-teen.
