It is nearly Leap Day! So, for today's edition of Did You Know, Or Do You Care...we present...Leap Day Fun Facts:
A year is actually longer than 365 days
It's all about the sun! We grew up being told the Earth takes 365 days to make a complete circle around the Sun, but it actually takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds – or 365.24219 days. An extra day is added about every four years as a corrective measure to stay in sync with the solar year.
There was a February 30 at one point
February 30 was an actual date in the Soviet Union in 1930 and 1931. Officials wanted to even out the year and have five-day weeks and 30-day months. This, too, created a lot of confusion and the seven-day week was restored in 1940.
The chances of being a leapling are tiny
The chances of being born on any day are 1 in 365. Multiply that by four, and the odds of being a leapling are 1 in 1,461. So, statistically speaking, if birthdays are evenly distributed throughout the year, 0.07% of the world's population was born on a leap day.