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February the 29th only comes around every four years and there are traditions around the world which hold that a woman may only propose to a man on February 29th. People born on 29th February may be called leaplings. In order that people leaplings may turn 18 and 21 in the correct time frame, most countries have legislation that makes their legal birthdays February 28th or March 1st.

The whole leaping affair is designed to make sure that the seasons correspond to similar parts of the calendar each year -instead of progressively moving later and later. This is because the earth moves around the Sun in 365 days and 6 hours. Even this is not entirely accurate and so the seasons, equinoxes and other solar related phenomena, change by a few minutes each year. Not only this, but the speed of the Earth’s rotation changes too, so that leap seconds have to be accounted for as well.