Four million people celebrating ‘Leap Day’ birthday
Posted Feb 29, 2012 8:11 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Four million people worldwide will celebrate something they haven’t seen in four years Wednesday – their birthday.
2012 is a leap year, where the Gregorian calendar is one extra day long to account for the Earth’s trip around the sun.
It was first introduced over 2,000 years ago by Julius Caesar for February, because that was the last month of the year in Roman times.
Without leap years, calendars would be off by 24 days over a 100-year span.
In 700 years, it would mean that the calendar would be off by almost six months allowing for snow in July.
In Scotland, it used to be considered bad luck for someone to be born on a Leap Day.
Leap Day baby Joshua Lewis says he doesn’t think that’s the case in his position, in fact he believes he’s rather lucky.
“Typically if it falls on a day that’s not a leap year what we tend to do is either the 28th or the 1st, we’ll celebrate my birthday,” he says. “So it’s not really any specific day, it’s whatever fits.”
It’s just one of several oddities for Lewis, who’s also flat-footed and colour blind.
The leapling, who’s also the father of a nine day old boy, tells 660News he was the brunt of some jokes in the maternity ward.
“I started talking to the nurses, who said, “you’re a little young to be having a baby these days,” he laughs, “It’s been pretty interesting.”
Lewis is wondering what he’ll say to his child in eight years, when his son becomes older than his father.
According to the numbers, there is a 1 in 1,461 chance of being born on February 29th.
A leap year occurs in years that can evenly be divided by four.
