Four Random Trivia Facts About Leap Day

It's a leap year, and today is February 29th...Leap Day. It's like a free, bonus day for you to experience the joy of living! Or, for people in prison, an extra day to spend locked up. Here are four random facts about Leap Day for you to throw around.

We have Leap Years because it takes slightly longer than 365 days for the Earth to go around the sun. Every four years we add an extra day to even things out.

#1.) The odds of having a birthday on February 29th are one in 1,461. And about four million people worldwide have a Leap Day birthday.

#2.) On non-Leap Years, about 80% of the people born on February 29th choose to celebrate their birthday on February 28th. But legally, almost every state doesn't consider them older until March 1st, so they don't legally turn 18 or 21 until March 1st.

#3.) There's a Leap Day every four years, EXCEPT in years that are perfectly divisible by 100, UNLESS those years are also perfectly divisible by 400. That's so unnecessarily complex. It means 2000 had a Leap Day but 2100 won't.

#4.) Sir James Milne Wilson is a former premier of Tasmania, and the only high-profile person ever to be BORN on a Leap Day and to DIE on one. He was born February 29th, 1812 and died February 29th, 1880, on his "17th" birthday.

(Houston Chronicle / 11 Points)