Happy February 29th = Leap Day!

I won't get to say that again till 2012! So, Happy Leap Day! Here are some Leap Day facts & figures... just to keep you in the know.

• The 365 days of the annual calendar are meant to match up with the solar year. A solar year is the time it takes the Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun—about one year. But the actual time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun is in fact a little longer than that—about 365¼ days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be precise).


• The Egyptians were the first to come up with the idea of adding a leap day once every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year. Later, the Romans adopted this solution for their calendar, and they became the first to designate February 29 as the leap day.


• The odds of you being born on Leap Day: 1 in 1,506.


• Leap Year was the traditional time that women could propose marriage. When the rules of courtship were stricter, women were only allowed to pop the question on one day every four years - February 29th.