2020 is a special year, Cougars! This year just so happens to be a LEAP YEAR! How awesome is that?!

A leap year only happens every four years and it happens by adding an additional day to one month on the calendar. Leap years keep the Gregorian calendar aligned with the revolutions that the Earth makes around the Sun and to keep up with tropical years. A tropical year is the exact amount of time it takes the Earth to revolve around the Sun which is about 365.2426 days.

The concept of a leap year was invented by the Roman General, Julius Caesar. The Julian calendar was created which made any year divisible by four a leap year but that caused a problem. There were too many leap years and it caused the Julian calendar to drift from the tropical year. Luckily, the Gregorian calendar corrected this but it happened over 1500 years later.

Now some of you may be wondering what happens when someone is born on February 29th. Well, from what I’ve learned most people just celebrate on February 28th since they are still aging at the same pass as everybody else.

Now some superstitions exist about the leap year such as : the Greeks believed it was bad luck to get married during a leap year so most tried to avoid scheduling it then, In Ireland it is believed that St Brigid struck a deal with St Patrick so that women could propose to men but only every four years and If men of the higher class refused a woman’s proposal they had to buy her 12 pairs of gloves so that she could hide the embarrassment of not having an engagement ring.

Hopefully we will all have a wonderful leap year and many more to follow!