When do leap-day babies celebrate their birthdays?

February 9, 1996
Dear Cecil:

I have always wondered what people do who are born on leap day, February 29. Obviously they age each year, but do they celebrate it on the 28th or the 1st? And when their actual birth date does come around, do they have a really huge bash to make up for lost time?

— Kristin, Los Angeles

Dear Kristin:

My assistant Little Ed explained this in his book Know It All, so you know it can't be that complicated. What you celebrate on your birthday isn't the annual arrival of your birth date; it's the fact that you're one year older. One year = one complete revolution by the earth around the sun = 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds.

To figure the right day to celebrate your birthday, you add 365 and one-quarter days to the hour of your birth. Suppose you were born February 29, 1972 at 10 PM. Then 365 and one-quarter days went by and behold, the first anniversary of your birth hour came on March 1, 1973, at about 4 AM.

The second and third anniversaries also fell on March 1, at 10 AM and 4 PM respectively. Comes year four (1976), and your anniversary is back where it started, February 29 at 10 PM.

Things would have worked out differently if you'd been born at 4 AM on leap day. Your first, second, and third birth-hour anniversaries would have occurred on February 28 at 10 AM, 4 PM, and 10 PM, respectively. If you'd been born at 4 PM, your first anniversary would fall on February 28 but your second and third on March 1. What happens for leap-day babies born at other hours is left as an exercise for the student.

The real problem isn't leap-day people, it's those smug non-leap-day babies who think all they've got to do to be in synch with the cosmos is celebrate their birthdays on the same date every year. Not a chance, Lance.

If you were born February 28, 1972, at 4 AM, you were supposed to celebrate all your non-leap-year birthdays on February 27. Did you? Of course not. Before you were out of diapers you were shaking down the 'rents for gifts under false pretenses. Considering how today's youth start out, it's no wonder so many come to no good.

But look on the bright side. The year 2000, thank Jah, will be a normal leap year. Years divisible by 100 usually aren't. (The rule is: year divisible by 100, no leap year unless also divisible by 400, in which case leap year. It's to keep the calendar lined up with the solar system. Trust Uncle Cecil.)

Were we to skip a leap year in 2000, the awful consequence would be that everybody in the world would celebrate his or her birthday on the wrong day. (At least in some years. If you must get technical, on average we'd be 66 percent more wrong than previously.) Talk about dodging a bullet.

In leap-day-less 1900 they weren't so lucky. Take my late grandmother, born in 1887. Commencing in 1900 she began celebrating her birthday a day before it actually occurred. For the next 81 years, in short, she was living a lie. She was a dour woman; now I know why:

— Cecil Adams

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1216/when-do-leap-day-babies-celebrate-their-birthdays

Leap Year...

Leap Day: February 29, 2012

’Leap Day’ is February 29, which is an extra (intercalary) day added during a Leap Year, making the year 366 days long – and not 365 days, like a common (normal) year.

Nearly every 4 years is a Leap Year in our modern Gregorian Calendar.

Brief history of the Leap Day
Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days (a tropical year) to circle once around the Sun. If we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!

Leap Years 2008 – 2032

Year February 29 – day of the week
2008 Friday
2012 Wednesday
2016 Monday
2020 Saturday
2024 Thursday
2028 Tuesday
2032 Sunday

The ancient Roman Calendar added an extra month every few years to maintain the correct seasonal changes.

But Julius Caesar implemented a new calendar – the Julian Calendar – in 45 BCE (Before Common Era) with an extra day added every 4 years. At the time, Leap Day was February 24, because February was the last month of the year.

What's a Leap Second?

February 30 was a real date

Too many Leap Years
In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII refined the Julian calendar with a new rule that a century year is not a Leap Year unless it is evenly divisible by 400. This transition to the Gregorian Calendar was observed in some countries including Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. The transition took longer for other countries; Great Britain started using the Gregorian Calendar in 1752 and Lithuania in 1915.
infor from http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leap-day.html

more infor:
http://www.projectbritain.com/year/leapyear.htm

This is me...2012

Original picture and Me in Chalk and charcoal drawing.

Start February 2012... holiday for Malaysia

Holidays and Observances:
1 Jan New Year's Day
2 Jan 'New Year's Day' observed
23 Jan Chinese Lunar New Year's Day
24 Jan Second day of Chinese Lunar New Year
1 Feb Federal Territory Day
5 Feb The Prophet Muhammad's Birthday
7 Feb Thaipusam
1 May Labour Day
5 May Wesak Day
2 Jun The Yang di-Pertuan Agong's Birthday
19 Aug Hari Raya Puasa Day 1
20 Aug Hari Raya Puasa Day 2
31 Aug National Day
16 Sep Malaysia Day
26 Oct Hari Raya Haji
13 Nov Deepavali
15 Nov Muharram/New Year
24 Dec Christmas Eve
25 Dec Christmas Day
31 Dec New Year's Eve