Rehoboth girl celebrates leap day birthday
While she may have turned 8 years old, Rehoboth Elementary second-grader Elizabeth Timmons celebrated her second actual birthdate Feb. 29.
Elizabeth is part of an elite group known as Leaplings, people born on the last day tacked onto the end of February just about every four years. According to Lamaze International, about 5 million people worldwide share the Feb. 29 birthday, meaning there is a 1 in 1,461 chance of being born on that day.
Because Earth actually takes a little longer than 365 days to revolve around the sun, leap year exists in large part so months continue to sync with annual events such as equinoxes and solstices.
The earth takes 365.242 days to complete its circuit, so an extra day is added to the end of February almost every four years. Adding a leap day every four years would actually make the calendar year longer by 44 minutes, according to the National Air & Space Museum, which can also knock the calendar off schedule.
To compensate, leap year intervals are spread out much longer than four years. Years divisible by 100 but not 400 are skipped, so leap years were skipped in 1700, 1800 and 1900. The next leap year to be skipped isn’t until 2100.
Elizabeth said she plans to celebrate her birthday with a hibachi dinner with family. She said her friends think it’s really cool to have a leap year birthday.
