It's a special and rare day in the calendar.

It’s a special and rare day in the calendar. It doesn’t happen often but it’s critical we get it right. Debbie Lazaga explains more.

Let’s play a guessing game. What happens every four years, a certain percentage of the population is extra excited about and it has to do with time…

Give up? It’s leap year. And by the way, that percentage of excited people are folks born on February 29th. We’ll get to them in a second. But first, why do we have leap year?

Director of the UWM Manfred Olson Planetarium, Dr. Gene Creighton, filled me in on the nuts and bolts, “The reason for this is that the Earth takes 365 and a quarter days to go around the sun. And we don’t deal with quarter of days, so we say, let it be 365.” Rounding it off for simplicity.

It's a special and rare day in the calendar. It doesn't happen often but it's critical we get it right. — Copyright has expired on this artwork. From my own archives, digitally restored.

Creighton goes on to say, “But if you don’t make a correction for that quarter of a day, inevitably, you’re going to be out of sync. You’re going to say, ‘Oh, this is the beginning of the year, but it’s mid-July.’ So the way that most modern people do this is that every fourth year, we add an extra day.”

And globally, it’s been agreed upon that we add it to the shortest month of the year, February, because having 32 days in January is just plain cruel and unusual.

But it goes beyond that, “This isn’t just a let’s follow tradition and let’s just add a day every four years. It has consequences in our daily life that we just take for granted. We just assume that the time is going to be true everywhere. But if we don’t all agree that we’re going to add that moment now, then it doesn’t work, explains Creighton.

Yeah, you know that phone in your pocket? It needs everything to time out as well.

Creighton says, “So it turns out that if you don’t take it into account, then our satellites wouldn’t work properly.”

So what about the lucky percentage of the population?

Actor, playwright, and musician Bob Mackay explains what it’s like turning 14. Sort of. Well, technically, “It’s funny. I often get the question, ‘wow, you’re a leap year person. So what do you do? How does that work?”

So what day does he officially celebrate his birthday?

“Really, whatever day is most convenient on any given year. And then every fourth year when a real birthday happens, I just might go extra, big with the celebration,” he explains.

The exact date might make a difference to some. According to Thomson Reuters’ legal directory, some states have determined that either February 28th
or March 1st as being the legal date that a person turns, for example, 18 or 21. Incidentally, in Wisconsin, it’s March 1st.

So to recap, without leap years, our seasons would be all out of whack with the calendar, and satellites and astronomical observations may be all messed up. But if it’s your birthday, Mackay says, “The best thing about it is what a great conversation starter and a great icebreaker. If people don’t already know this about me, it’s a great little thing to just throw out there. And right away, people cock their heads and go, oh, tell me more. How does that work?”

Happy birthday, “leaplings.”

UWM Manfred Olsen Planetarium has great programs throughout the year. Check here to learn more about their public events.

TOP HEADLINES FROM THE 620 WTMJ NEWS TEAM:

READ: Milwaukee Auto Show spotlights new tech trends & innovations in auto industry

Tags: Leap year