Leap Day: The Calendar's Rarest Birthday
February 29 exists only in leap years, a calendar correction introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC to account for the extra quarter-day it takes Earth to orbit the Sun. People born on this date — called "leaplings" — celebrate their actual birthday once every four years, creating curious legal complications around age and milestones that vary from country to country.
February 29
What Else Happened on February 29
Odo wasn't supposed to be king. He was a count, not a Carolingian. But when Vikings besieged Paris in 885, he held the city for eleven months while Emperor Char…
Christopher Columbus was stranded, starving, and running out of options when he pulled a bluff that would make a poker player proud. Marooned on Jamaica's north…
Abel Tasman left Batavia in 1644 to find whether New Guinea connected to the mysterious southern land he'd glimpsed two years earlier. He sailed the entire nort…
Abel Tasman left Batavia on January 29, 1644, commanding three ships with orders to find out if New Guinea connected to the mysterious southern land he'd glimps…
The attack came at four in the morning during a February blizzard, and the snowdrifts that were supposed to protect the town became the instrument of its destru…
Sweden once had a February 30th — the only country in recorded history to add that nonexistent date to its calendar — and the reason involves one of the most sp…
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