Does today count?

Let's start by taking a closer look at the date and it's status:

February 29

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

February 29 is a date that occurs only every four years, in years evenly divisible by 4, such as 1988, 1996, 2008 or 2016 (with the exception of century years not divisible by 400, such as 1900). These are called leap years, and February 29 is the 60th day of the Gregorian calendar in such a year, with 306 days remaining until the end of that year. February 29 is also known as bissextile day or Leap Day.

Events

• 1504 - Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Native Americans to provide him with supplies.
• 1704 - Queen Anne's War: French forces and Native Americans stage a raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing 100 men, women, and children.
• 1712 - February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Old style.
• 1720 - Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden abdicates in favour of her husband, who becomes King Frederick I.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid fails - Plans to free 15,000 Union soldiers being held near Richmond, Virginia are thwarted.
• 1892 - St. Petersburg, Florida incorporated.
• 1916 - Child labor: In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from twelve to fourteen years old.
• 1932 - TIME magazine features eccentric American politician William "Alfalfa" Murray on its cover after Murray stated his intention to run for President of the United States.
• 1936 - Baby Snooks, played by Fanny Brice, debuts on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
• 1940 - For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
• 1940 - Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations
• 1940 - In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, because of the war, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives his 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from the Sweden's Consul General in San Francisco.
• 1944 - World War II: The Admiralty Islands are invaded in the American General Douglas MacArthur-led Operation Brewer.
• 1952 - The island of Heligoland is restored to German authority.
• 1956 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces to the nation that he is running for a second term.
• 1960 - An earthquake in Morocco kills over 3,000 people and nearly destroys Agadir in the southern part of the country.
• 1964 - In Sydney, Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser sets a new world record in the 100-meter freestyle swimming competition (58.9 seconds).
• 1972 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - South Korea withdraws 11,000 of its 48,000 troops from Vietnam.
• 1972 - Hank Aaron becomes the first player in the history of Major League Baseball to sign a $200,000 contract.
• 1984 - Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announces he will retire as soon as the Liberals can elect another leader.
• 1988 - South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town
• 1996 - Novelist Joan Collins awarded US $1 million from Random House for breach of contract.
• 1996 - A Peruvian Boeing 737 crashes in the Andes, killing 123 people.
• 2000 - Six year old Dedrick Owens shoots and kills Kayla Rolland, also six years old, at Theo J. Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Michigan.
• 2004 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as President of Haiti following popular rebel uprising.

Births

A person who was born on February 29 may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they may celebrate their birthday on 28 February or 1 March.

For legal purposes, their legal birthdays depend on how different laws count time intervals. In England and Wales the legal birthday of a leapling is 28 February in common years (see Leap Years, above). In Taiwan the legal birthday of a leapling is also February 28 in common years. In both cases, a person born on February 29, 1980 would have legally reached 18 years old on February 28, 1998.

"If a period fixed by weeks, months, and years does not commence from the beginning of a week, month, or year, it ends with the ending of the day which proceeds the day of the last week, month, or year which corresponds to that on which it began to commence. But if there is no corresponding day in the last month, the period ends with the ending of the last day of the last month.^[2]"

There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out to be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Frederic, born on February 29, was apprenticed to a band of pirates until his 21st birthday, which would not arrive until he was eighty-four years old.^[3]

Holidays and observances

• Bahá'í Faith - Day 4 of Ayyám-i-Há (Intercalary Days) (in leap years only) - days in the Bahá'í calendar devoted to service and gift giving.
• Discordianism - St. Tib's Day.
• February 29 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
  

Notes

1. ^ Clarissa Bye, "Take the Leap Today, Girls," Sydney Morning Herald, February 29, 2004. Retrieved July 27, 2007.
2. ^ Article 121 of the Civil Code Part I General Principles of the Republic of China in effect in Taiwan.
3. ^ Not eighty-four, as the year 1900 would not be a leap year.

Ok, so there was a list of births, but it was boring as hell, so I cut it out along with the "Deaths" section. Seriously, who cares about dead people anyhow? Unless they come back as zombies, I'm pretty sure that they're not going to be causing any major trouble any time soon.

Moving right along, what is significant about today? Not much really. The average person will see about 15 to 20 of these days pass them by and will remember approximately 2 less than that. The one at the start is a definite no go as when you're 4 at the most, you just wont care and I figure that the one at the end will probably be clouded by Alzheimers or some other mentally crippling disease. I mean let's face it, most of the people on this planet already suffer from a massive case of stupidity, so I don't think that I'm making too much of a leap here.

There are two things that I do find mildly interesting about the 29th though (three if you count the Discordanisim holiday, but what do they matter?). Firstly is that in official terms, the norm seems to be that people born on the 29th have their birthday pushed to the 28th. Now I can sort of see why as it keeps their birthday in the right month and all that, but still it just doesn't quite sit right. I would prefer to celebrate on the 1st of March as that is technically closer to the actual anniversary of one's birth. Since I was born in August though, this is a moot point, so whatever.

The other thing I find curious is this tradition of women being "allowed" to propose to men on this day. What the hell? Sure this was all well and good to make a fuss over back in the archaic days when men had one set of rules and women another where matters of propriety and social acceptability were concerned, but come on, it's 2008 people! We have long since shed any pretence of social acceptability. Besides, I thought the rule was meant to be that men and women were equals now (except in areas of natural and irreconcilable biological difference) and this seems to set us all back a good 60 years or more. What the hell?

My conclusion after reviewing all my own evidence is this then: Today is special only because I've posted something up. Simple as that. I am a fair god and you are right to worship me and thank me for my beneficence. Letting you all stumble around in the darkness looking for a blog entry today is not something I would wish on anyone (except those that are deserving of my scorn) and so I have rescued you from a day of tedium and banality. Praise be to me for I have even provided the... "less wordy" among you with links to explain my glorious perspicacity!

-Salem
In another 4 years it will be Frejak or Kahn that saves you.