Posted on 02/28/2004 7:03:40 PM PST by Indy Pendance
Leap Day makes for a unique birthday
Today is Leap Day, Feb. 29, 2004--a day that is significant because of its rarity. Leap Day only happens every four year and because it does not occur on our calendar that often, you can imagine how unusual it is for someone who was born on Leap Day.
Some local individuals will be celebrating their birthdays today. Tori Rae Gonzalez will celebrate her first calendar-year birthday. She will celebrate four years of life with a Care Bear party. She is the daughter of James Gonzalez and Janine Fuqua of Sweet-water. James works at B-line Lube and Janine works at Ludlum Measurements.
Tori's birthday was celebrated on Feb. 28 during regular calendar years, according to her mother. Her parents have enjoyed having a Leap Day baby because it makes her unique. Making her more unique was the fact that she was born on Leap Day 2000.
Another person that will be celebrating a birthday today is Helen L. Jackson Goettsche. She is the mother of three, grandmother of seven, great-grandmother of 15 and great-great-grandmother of six and soon to be seven. That's not bad for a woman just celebrating her 24th birthday. Mrs. Goettsche was actually born in 1908 and has lived for 96 years.
When asked what it is like having a Leap Year birthday, she said it is very special but pointed out that all 96 of her birthdays have been special. One birthday in particular stands out in her mind, however. It was Feb. 29, 1980. She was 72 but that was only the 18th birthday that appeared on the calendar for her. It was also the month and year that her granddaughter, Glynis Gotcher turned 18. That year they celebrated their birthdays together with a big party at Lake LBJ.
This year Mrs. Goettshce will be celebrating with members of her family at a party given by her daughters, Gusta McGee, Jenelle Moore and Glenna Miles.
Leap years are unique and have a long history. The calendar year is 365 days long, unless the year is exactly divisible by 4, in which case an extra day is added to February to make the year 366 days long. If the year is the last year of a century, e.g.. 1800, 1900, 2000, then it is only a leap year if it is exactly divisible by 400. That means 1900 was not a leap year but 2000 was. The reason for these rules is to bring the average length of the calendar year into line with the length of the Earth's orbit around the sun so the seasons always occur during the same months each year, according to the National Mari-time Museum, Royal Observa-tory in Greenwich.
In the year 46 b.c. Julian Caesar established the Julian calendar, which contained 12 months and had an average of 365.25 days in a year. This was achieved by having three years with 365 days and one year with 366 days. Leap Years were not actually correctly inserted, however, until 8 a.d.
The National Maritime Mu-seum, Royal Observatory ex-plains that the discrepancy between the actual length of the year, 365.24219 days and the adopted length of 365.25 days made the tropical year become progressively out of kilter with the calendar date. A tropical year is when the sun is above the Earth's equator while going from south to north and that signified the beginning of spring. It defines the repetition of seasons.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Gregorian calendar to fix the discrepancy, and it has been used ever since. The difference in the calendars involved the change of the simple rule for leap years to the more complex one in which century years should only be leap years if divisible by 400. The Gregorian calendar also established the beginning of the year as Jan. 1 instead of March 25.
Changes had to be made in the years that the Gregorian calendar was accepted to make up for the discrepancies made by the Julian calendar. In 1582 the Catholic countries eliminated 10 days. Oct. 4 was followed by Oct. 15. Britain and its colonies made the change in 1752 when Sept. 2 was followed by Sept. 14.
There are some interesting and fun facts about Leap Years. According to Leapzine, a Web site dedicated to Leap Years and Leap Day babies, even decades have three leap years while odd decades have two leap years.
Another way to tell if a year will be a Leap Year include looking at the days of the week Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 fall on. Leap Years only occur during years when Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 fall on different days of the week.
Leapzine also reports that the longest Leap Day birthday recorded happened in 1960 when Jon Hayanga had his birthday in Taipei, China, then crossed the international date line going east and had his birthday again the next day in Spokane, Wash. The shortest recorded Leap Day birthday was had by Ed Chatfield in 1940. He crossed the date line in a ship going west the night of Feb. 28 and woke up on March 1, so he lost his birthday entirely that year.
Another interesting fact is that people born on Leap Day 1884 had no birthday during their entire teenage years because 1900 was not a Leap Year. In 1888 they were 4 at 1, in 1982 there were 8 at 2, in 1896 they were 12 at 3, and in 1900 there was no Leap Year so they went 8 years before another birthday. They were then 20 at 5.
Leap Year babies will most likely never have a Golden Birthday. A Golden Birthday is when your age matches the number of the day of the month you were born on. Leap Year babies will have to be 116 before they turn 29 on the 29th.
There are some well known people that were born on Feb. 29. Here is a list of some found on www.leapzine.com:
My sister-in-law will be nine tomorrow! When she turned 21, her and her friends went out on the town on February 28th. No one would serve her until March 1st.
Fourteen years apart ... for an occasion that could only occur 4,8, 12, 16 or 20 years apart??? Maybe you wanna do the math again.
The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies has several related Leap Year Day Baby members.
Please be sure to check them out. There are several sets of twins and even a set of triplets.
There are Leapies married to each other and Leapies giving birth to Leapies! It's pretty cool.
After you read this, check them out on the MEMBERS page on the Honor Society site.
A labor and delivery nurse who worked this past Leap Day 2000 asked us what the statistical odds are of having more than one baby on Leap Day in the family.
| Our math says your odds of being born on Leap Day is 1 in 1461 -- so two people in the same family born on Leap Day is 1461 times 1461, then divide that down by the number of family members in the family. Here are the odds, we've rounded the numbers so they're easier to read: |
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The person born on Feb 29 has a birth-DATE that occurs only every 4 years, but his birth-DAY occurs every year on the 60th day of the year (which is Mar 1 in non-leap years).
NOTE: Everyone born after Feb 28 has the same problem - you've been celebrating your birth-DAY on the WRONG DATE every 4th year (if not born in a leap year) or every 3-out-of-4 years (if born in a leap year).
So, the 2000 Leap Year was the exception to the exception to the exception.
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