Holy mackerel, its leap year again. Leap day is a day that all you leaplings can officially recognize your birthday. Like most people my age, I do not like to celebrate my birthday every year because it just means I am getting older and I would like to get younger. My birthday is in October but I wish it was on February 29th (leap day). That would make a lot easier to accommodate my wishes of not celebrating my birthday every year.

If my birthday was on leap day I would travel to Anthony, Texas, the leap year capital of the world according to leapyearday.com. Anthony is a town of about 4,000 people located on the border of Texas and New Mexico between El Paso, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico. They became the leap day capital of the world in 1988 while seeking to promote their community. They host the “Worldwide Leap Year Festival”. The festival comes complete with a golf tournament, breakfast and a parade. They even have a “Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club”. As you may have guessed the event has grown leaps and bounds since its inception in 1988. They have had leapers attend from every state in the union and have come from as far away as Germany and Switzerland.

Another reason I wish my birthday was on leap day is because according to astrologers, those born under the sign of Pisces on February 29 have unusual talents and personalities reflecting their special status. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take any help I can get in the unusual talents and personality category.

All this leap year talk has got me to thinking about the who, what and why of leap day. Turns out, according to history.com, that Julius Caesar is the father of leap year. He and his astronomers are behind the origin of leap year that started in 45 BC. The early Romans had a 355 day calendar and to keep festivals occurring around the same season each year a 22 or 23 day month was created every second year. Julius decided to simplify things and added days to different months of the year to create the 365 day calendar. Leap day was added every fourth year to account for time drift. You see, a year is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds long, not 365 days as is commonly stated. So that means that leap days job is to simply account for or offset the time drift that we accrue each year.

Leap years do happen generally every four years with only one exception. No year divisible by 100 would have a leap year, except if it is divisible by 400. That means 1900 was not a leap year but 2000 was. The last time this happened was between the years of 1896 and 1904. The next time will be 2096 and 2104. This means the longest time between two leap years is eight years.

Here’s a little ditty I found on the internet to help us remember how many days are in each month.

Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November,

All the rest have thirty-one

Save February, she alone

Hath eight days and a score

Til leap year gives her one day more.

Happy upcoming leap day!

Ken Harty is the Publisher of The Daily Iberian. He can be reached at kenh@daily-iberian.com.