Leap Day

How many days are there in a year? Well, there's one extra this year, February 29th, bringing the total up to 366 days. We call this a leap day. This happens every four years to make up for the deficiencies in the Gregorian calendar.

Yes it's hard to believe that we still follow a calendar designed by a Pope from the 1570's (who in turn was only copying Julius Caesar's idea five centuries even earlier!)

Leap day Traditions:

Women can propose marriage to men on leap days.
Some countries celebrate Feb 29th as bachelor's day.
In Scotland leap day is considered to be bad luck.
In Greece it is bad luck to get married on a leap day.

So what do you do, if you were born on Feb 29th? Most people can choose, during a normal year, to have their birthday on either Feb 28th or March 1st.

Vocab:

to leap - to jump
century - a hundred years
to propose - to ask formally
a bachelor - a man who is single