“Ya’ll gon make me lose my mind up in here up in here”, rapped famous nine year old hip-hop rap artist Ja Rule to his remix of an original DMX song. The 21st-century rap artist shares an uncommon birthdate with the most prominent religious leader of the Catholic Church in the early 16th century, Pope Paul the second. Only a few famous people in history share the rare birthday February 29.
As we all know, every four years an extra day is added to February on our calendars. Being that this day only occurs once every four years, the odds of being born on the leap day of the leap year are 1 in 1,461. This means that out of roughly about 320 million people in the United States only 187,000 get this distinction, and out of 7 billion people worldwide only 4 million people are leapers. Some of the other famous leapers out there today are prominent writer Tony Robbins and professional hockey player Simon Gagney, drafted to the Philadelphia Flyers.
Monday, February 29, 2016 is the next upcoming leap day and we can all attribute this day to the famous Roman Emperor in history Julius Caesar Augustus. August made many spontaneous changes to the calendar. For example, August used to have 30 days until Augustus added a day to August to make it one of the longest months in the calendar (he did this in honor of his own name of course – Augustus). Adding a day to the month of February every four years was not as random as this change however. The real answer is an astrological one.
The earth orbits the sun, and the length of time it takes to completely orbit the sun one time is equivalent to one full year, or so we assume. To complete this yearly trip, the Earth actually takes 365 and 1/4 of a day to complete the cycle. If we did not account for this ¼ of a day then our yearly calendar would not align with the Earth’s cycle. Thus, a leap day had to be added to the calendar and Caesar Augustus is credited for the change.
The reason we call this day a “leap” day is because it causes every other day to leap over. For example, if Christmas lands on Monday in 2013, Tuesday in 2014, Wednesday in 2015, then on the leap year, 2016, Christmas will have leapt over Thursday and have landed on a Friday.
This Monday is a special day for all of us (we only experience about two dozen leap days in our lifetime). Mothers giving birth to their child on this day is a rarity and as such, a baby born on this day should have a befitting name for this rare circumstance. Julius is a fitting name for a boy born on February 29 because Julius Caesar is the man responsible for the leap day. Traditionally women all around the world propose to men on the leap day only. Also, the Sadie Hawkins dance in the US is a song and dance in which the women asked the men to dance. The name Sadie befits a baby girl because it
captures a strong and feminine quality which fits February 29th and its unusual traditions.
Nonetheless, Monday is a rare event in the lives of everyone. Think carefully about how you want to spend such a rare day in our lives.
