LEAPIN' LIZARDS

It's time for another LEAP YEAR!!!

~Enjoy this page of totally useless information~

Leap Year occurs every four years, except for years ending in 00, in which case only if the year is divisible by 400 is it a Leap Year.

So, why put ourselves through such changes?  If we didn't,  after about 750 years, the Fourth of July would happen during the winter.  And Santa Claus would have to visit us wearing Bermuda shorts and a tank top instead of his familiar red suit!

The actual length of a year is 365.24199 days.  This is the amount of time between two vernal equinoxes which occurs around March 21.    One day is, in reality, close to 24.0159254137 hours.  So, you see, we do have more than 24 hours in a day to get all of that extra work done!

More than 2,000 years ago, astronomers knew that the calendar was off about 1/4 day per year.  With the Julian calender (Thank You, Julius Caesar!) one day was added every four years to account for the fraction of a day.  This worked for awhile, but by the 16th century the year had been "overcorrected" by about 2 weeks.  Pope Gregory XVIII came to the rescue with his Gregorian calendar.  To accomodate for the overcorrection, 10 days were dropped from the month of October.  In 1582 the calendar went from October 4 to October 15th.  And, to avoid any overcorrection in the opposite direction, astronomer Christopher Clavius decided to only make centennial years Leap Years if they were divisible by 400. The next Centennial Leap Year will be the year 2400. Now, did you really want to know all of this???

Ever wonder why Leap Year is in February? With the Julian calendar, February was the last month of the year....the extra day, every four years, was added to the end of the year.

So much for Calendar History!

About 187,000 people in the United States and approximately 4.1 million people in the world are Leap Day Babies.    Babies have a 1 in 1461 chance of being born on February 29.

Some really exciting things have happened on February 29th.
1504 Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to frighten hostile Jamaican Indians
1692 Sarah Good and Tituba, an Indian servant, accused of whitchcraft, Salem, MA
1704 French & Indians attack Deerfield MA, kill 50, abduct 100
1832  Charles Darwin visits jungle near Bahia Brazil
1880 Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland & Italy opens
1892 Britain & US sign treaty on seal hunting in the Bering Sea
1904 Theodore Roosevelt appoints 7 man committee to study Panama Canal
1936 FDR signs 2nd neutrality act
1940 "Gone With The Wind," wins 8 Oscars; Hattie McDaniel becomes the first black woman to win an Oscar
1952 Dick Button wins his 5th consecutive world figure skating title
1956 President Eisenhower anounces he would seek a 2nd term
1960 First Playboy Club, featuring bunnies, opens in Chicago
1964 North Carolina high school basketball teams play to 56-54 score in 13 overtimes
1968 Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" wins Grammy
1972 Hank Aaron becomes 1st baseball player to sign for $200,000 a year
1980 Gordie Howe becomes 1st NHL player to score 800 career goals.

A LITTLE FOLKLORE
In 5th Century Ireland, St Bridget complained to St Patrick that the sisters in her nunnery were in despair because they had to wait for a proposal of marriage from a man...that was the tradition.  St Patrick agreed to allow women to prospose to men every four years during Leap Year.  The story goes on to say that during one of the Leap Years, Bridget proposed to Patrick, only to be denied!

This tradition carried on into the Victorian Era  and Feb 29 was set as the date for a young debutante to propose to the male suitor of her choice. 

This date is also known as Sadie Hawkins Day.  This came from the once-popular cartoon "Lil' Abner" drawn by Al Capp.  The cartoon appeared in the 1930's and had a female character named Sadie Hawkins.  She, like the others in the strip, lived in the town of Dogpatch.  Sadie was often seen having a hard time getting a man to propose to her.  Since her father was the Mayor of Dogpatch, he declared that on "Sadie Hawkin's" Day the unmarried women in Dogpatch  could "chase down" and propose to the man of their choice. 

LEAP YEAR COCKTAIL

1 1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce Grand Marnier
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
A squeeze of lemon
Shake with crushed ice
Pour into a chilled cocktail glass
Garnish with a twist of lemon or orange

THAT'S ALL!!