Leap year is a peculiarity that occurs every four years to adjust the calendar to the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. However, over time leap years have dragged curiosities, beliefs, or superstitions that make much think, while others are they take it with humor.
One of the best-known curiosities falls to people born on February 29, the additional day of leap years. To avoid confusion, sometimes parents decide to enroll the baby on March 1.
So, those registered on February 29 will be in the dilemma of knowing whether to celebrate their birthday on February 28 or March 1. These people will also ‘play’ because, as they celebrate their birth only every four years. And then they will supposedly have the advantage that they will age much slower than other people.
One of the best-known characters born on February 29 is Pedro Sanchez (1972); the Spanish politician who is currently President of the Government since June 2018.
In Ireland, February 29 is of good luck, and the tradition is that women – and not men – are those of the initiative and propose marriage on a day known as Bachelor’s Day. But in Scotland, this date does not cause grace, since people considered it bad luck, something similar to Friday the 13th.
A place in the United Kingdom, it is even said that getting married in a leap year will bring bad fortune to the couple; mainly if people marry on February 29. Also, leap years are seen with some suspicion, as they are attributed to arrive with many inconveniences and misfortunes. For example, in the year 1912, the wreck of the Titanic occurred a tragedy that left about 1500 dead. Also in 1936, the Spanish Civil War began an event that left some 500,000 dead. The murders of Mahatma Gandhi (1948), Martin Luther King (1968), and John Lennon (1980) also recorded in leap years.
People will remember this year as the year of the COVID-19 coronavirus. However, the disease was first reported in Wuhan (China) on December 31, 2019.
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