World

What if we didn’t have leap years? And what if you’re born on one?

Published

1 year ago

February 29, 2024

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What if we didn’t have leap years? Maybe you haven’t given it much thought.

But people born on a “leap day” have given it many thoughts.

We’ve spoken to a number of them and asked about how their date of birth has affected their lives.

“I just want people to know that my birthday does exist,” one 29 February-born woman told Sky News.

We’ll get to that shortly.

First, what’s the deal with leap years anyway?

What if we didn’t have them?

A leap year means there’s an extra day in the calendar – 29 February.

They were introduced because most modern calendars worldwide have 365 days in them, but the actual solar year – the length of time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun – is approximately 365.25 days.

NASA explains: “To make up for the missing partial day, we add one day to our calendar approximately every four years. That is a leap year.”

If you don’t add that extra day approximately every four years, our calendars would eventually fall out of sync with the seasons.

Leap year origins

The leap year is thought to have been introduced by the Egyptians to balance the seasons in the third century BC.

They were observing a 365-day year that included a leap year every four years to correct the calendar, according to the National Geographic.

But this wasn’t quite working long-term, because a solar year still isn’t exactly 365.25 days – it’s just a tiny bit shorter at 365.2422.

It meant that even with a leap day every four years, each calendar year was about 11 minutes shorter than the seasonal calendar, meaning the calendar ended up being an entire day short every 128 years.

By the 16th century, the Romans decided to take drastic action, as they believed Christian holidays were being celebrated on the wrong days.

Pope Gregory XIII unveiled his own Gregorian calendar in 1582, and dropped 10 days from the month of October that year to sync things back up with the seasons.

The National Geographic said: “He also developed a new leap year system that used the solar year of 365.2422 days, added one leap day every four years, but dropped three leap days every 400 years to keep the calendars from drifting.”

Leap day traditions

One inadvertent tradition that comes with a leap year is full-time employees doing an extra day’s work for free.

That’s because if you’re paid a fixed annual salary, it doesn’t change based on how many days there are in the year.

If you’re paid by the hour, however, 29 February could be your lucky day, because if you’re working extra hours on the Thursday, you are entitled to claim those hours in the same way you do on any other workday.

Women proposing to men

This one’s a bit more fun.

29 February is known for being the day when women can propose to men.

You might be thinking: “But women can propose to whoever they want, whenever they want.”

But the tradition is believed to have started hundreds of years ago in an attempt to give women more power in their love lives.

Irish legend has it that St. Brigid of Kildare, a nun, complained to St. Patrick that maidens had to wait too long for potential suitors to propose.

So St. Patrick was forward-thinking enough to offer them one day every four years where women had the same proposal rights as men.

Proposal penalty

In 1208, the Scots not only adopted the proposal tradition, but also supposedly passed a law stating that any man who rejected a leap day proposal would have to pay a fine.

In other European countries, particularly in affluent areas, another penalty was that the proposal refuser would have to buy the woman he denied 12 pairs of gloves.

Bad luck?

There are certain nations where leap years and days get a bit of a bad rap.

Like in Greece, where superstition dictates that any marriage beginning during a leap year is destined for divorce, or in Italy, where Romans once believed February was a bad month that should be dedicated to the dead – therefore extending it was simply depressing.

Another Scottish superstition claims that anyone born on a leap day is doomed to have a life of suffering.

What it’s actually like to have a leap day birthday

Sky News has heard from a lot of people born on leap days, who are unofficially known as “leaplings”.

And thankfully, none of them appear to be having the sort of bad luck that Scottish superstitions prophesise.

Most 29 February babies are happy to be leaplings, Nicole Garcia tells us. Nicole, a mum of two from Michigan, is turning 11 this year, she says.

She’s given us her leap year birthday, of course, something that she often does when asked her age.

“I’d rather be younger,” she jokes.

Nicole is an admin of the Facebook group “February 29th, LEAP YEAR BABIES!”, which has almost 4,000 members who share the same birthday. And me, who asked to be let in.

If you’re a 29 Feb baby feeling a bit of leapling loneliness, it’s the place to be.

When asked their age, many members either follow Nicole’s lead and let you do the maths, or they’ll give you two numbers – their actual age and their leapling one.

Pros and cons

Most of the feedback we got from the group’s members suggested they love having such a unique birthday, but that a surprising amount of people don’t actually have any understanding of what a leap day is.

“Some people don’t even believe you when you tell them. I just want people to know that my birthday does exist,” Nicole says.

Her birthday might only come around every four years on paper, but she has found a satisfying alternative.

“I decided to take an extra day. I celebrate on the 28th and the 1st,” she says.

A lot of leaplings do this, apparently, but the law can actually dictate when leaplings’ common-year birthdays are. In the UK, for example, they legally become a year older on 1 March.

Even though important documents like birth certificates and passports can say 29 February, going with your assigned alternative birthday can become a necessity when filling out online forms, because a lot of them don’t provide 29 February as an option.

It can be an issue in the flesh, too. Geri Rafferty, another leapling from the US, remembers turning 21 – the legal age for drinking in America – in 1985 and going to the shops on 28 February to buy a bottle of wine to share with a friend.

She said the store clerk looked at her ID, which said 29 February, and refused to sell her the alcohol, insisting that her birthday was the next day, even though there was no 29 Feb that year.

Geri said: “I was so mad! My friend bought me the wine and we had a great celebration. The next day [1 March], I returned to the same package store and picked out the same bottle of wine. I slammed it down on the counter and told the clerk that now I was ‘officially’ 21 and could buy my own alcohol! The celebration continued that night as well.”

Selina Paggett, who is turning 16 – or 64 – suggests her mum must have known about the trouble a leap day birthday would cause her in the future.

She says: “After my birth early morning (2.34am, 1960), my mum pleaded with her doctor to enter Feb 28th on my birth certificate instead of Feb 29th. The doc replied: ‘NO ma’am, I will not falsify this document.'”

Canadian Claudia Femia, who’s turning 13 (52), said her mum had the opposite experience and was asked to change her birthday to another day when she was born.

Two leap day world records

Being born on a leap day is already an anomaly, but here are some seriously rare occurrences logged by Guinness World Records.

A world record was presented to the Henriksen family in Norway in 1968 for most siblings born on a leap day – and no, it wasn’t triplets.

The three children of Karin and Henry Henriksen, Heidi (b.1960), Olav (1964) and Leif-Martin (1968) were all born on leap days.

Then there’s the record for most generations born on leap day, which was awarded to the Keoghs in 1996. The Irish family had Peter Anthony (1940), his son Peter Eric (1964) and his granddaughter Bethany Wealth (1996), who were all born on 29 February.

World

Hamas says it will not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established as Israeli fire kills 18 in Gaza

Published

4 hours ago

August 2, 2025

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Hamas says it will not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established as Israeli fire kills 18 in Gaza

Hamas has said it will not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital.

The militant group said it was issuing a statement “in response to media reports quoting US envoy Steve Witkoff, claiming [Hamas] has shown willingness to disarm”.

It continued: “We reaffirm that resistance and its arms are a legitimate national and legal right as long as the occupation continues.

“This right is recognised by international laws and norms, and it cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights – first and foremost, the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Hamas also condemned Mr Witkoff’s visit to an aid distribution centre in Gaza on Friday as “nothing more than a premeditated staged show”.

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Mr Witkoff and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, visited a centre run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Hamas said the trip was “designed to mislead public opinion, polish the image of the occupation, and provide it with political cover for its starvation campaign and continued systematic killing of defenceless children and civilians in the Gaza Strip”.

Mr Witkoff said he spent “over five hours in Gaza”. In a post on X on Friday, he said: “The purpose of the visit was to give [President Trump] a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.”

Gaza health officials have said 18 people, including eight who were trying to access food, were killed by Israeli fire on Saturday.

Witness Yahia Youssef told Reuters news agency he helped carry three people wounded by gunshots and saw others lying on the ground near a food distribution centre.

In response to questions about several eyewitness accounts of violence at one of its facilities, GHF said “nothing [happened] at or near our sites”.

The US- and Israel-backed GHF has been marred by controversy and fatal shootings ever since it was set up earlier this year.

According to the United Nations’ human rights office, at least 859 people have been killed “in the vicinity” of GHF aid sites since late May.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and abducted 251 others. Of those, they still hold around 50, with 20 believed to be alive, after most of the others were released in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.

World

North Korea’s opened its doors to Russian tourists. So… how was their holiday?

Published

15 hours ago

August 2, 2025

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North Korea's opened its doors to Russian tourists. So... how was their holiday?

The world’s most secretive state is a mystery for billions of people – but not Anastasiya Samsonova.

She has returned from a week’s holiday in North Korea.

“We saw nothing terrible there, there is no danger there,” the 33-year-old HR manager tells me.

“Frankly speaking, we really liked it.”

She was part of a group of 15 Russian tourists who were the first foreign visitors to a new seaside resort, which was opened to great fanfare by North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in June.

Her holiday snaps show a white sand beach, shimmering seas and high-rise hotels. But something’s missing – people.

There are rows of sun loungers, but not a soul sitting on them. A glittering banquet hall that’s devoid of diners.

That’s because, when it comes to international tourists, the Wonsan-Kalma resort is currently only open to Russians.

“The hotel was absolutely new,” Anastasiya enthuses, unfussed by the absence of others.

“Everything was done very beautifully, a good interior … very developed infrastructure.”

But why not Turkey? Or Thailand?

I gently suggest that people in Britain might be shocked at the idea of a summer break in a country better known for famines and forced labour than parasols and pina coladas.

“We were interested in seeing how people live there,” Anastasiya explains.

“There were a lot of prejudices about what you can and can’t do in North Korea, how you can behave. But actually, we felt absolutely free.”

Anastasiya is one of a growing number of Russians who are choosing to visit their reclusive neighbour as the two allies continue to forge closer ties following the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Last year, North Korean troops supplied military support in Russia’s Kursk region, and now there is economic cooperation too.

North Korean produce, including apples and beer, has started appearing on supermarket shelves in Russia’s far east.

And last month, Moscow launched direct passenger flights to Pyongyang for the first time in decades.

But can this hermit nation really become a holiday hotspot?

The Moscow office of the Vostok Intur travel agency believes so. The company runs twice-weekly tours there, and I’m being given the hard sell.

“North Korea is an amazing country, unlike any other in the world,” director Irina Kobeleva gushes, before listing some unusual highlights.

“It is a country where you will not see any advertising on the streets. And it is very clean – even the asphalt is washed.”

She shows me the brochures, which present a glossy paradise. There are images of towering monuments, pristine golf greens and immaculate ski slopes. But again, no people.

Ms Kobeleva insists the company’s tours are increasingly popular, with 400 bookings a month.

“Our tourists are mostly older people who want to return to the USSR,” she says, “because there is a feeling that the real North Korea is very similar to what was once in the Soviet Union.

“But at the same time, there is a huge growing demand among young people.”

Sure enough, while we’re chatting, two customers walk in to book trips. The first is Pavel, a young blogger who likes to “collect” countries. North Korea will be number 89.

“The country has opened its doors to us, so I’m taking this chance,” he tells me when I ask why he wants to go.

For pensioner Tatiana, the reason is sentimental.

“My husband wanted to go there, but now he’s gone. So I want his wish to come true,” she says.

It’ll certainly cost them. One week’s trip that takes in Pyongyang, a circus and the new beach resort, costs roughly £1,500 without flights.

At that price, I suspect most tourists will be content for this secretive state to remain hidden.

World

US trade war: The state of play as Trump signs order imposing new tariffs – but there are more delays

Published

24 hours ago

August 1, 2025

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US trade war: The state of play as Trump signs order imposing new tariffs - but there are more delays

Donald Trump’s trade war has been difficult to keep up with, to put it mildly.

For all the threats and bluster of the US election campaign last year to the on-off implementation of trade tariffs – and more threats – since he returned to the White House in January, the president‘s protectionist agenda has been haphazard.

Trading partners, export-focused firms, customs agents and even his own trade team have had a lot on their plates as deadlines were imposed – and then retracted – and the tariff numbers tinkered.

Money latest: Why your internet feels slower

While the UK was the first country to secure a truce of sorts, described as a “deal”, the vast majority of nations have failed to secure any agreement.

Deal or no deal, no country is on better trading terms with the United States than it was when Trump 2.0 began.

Here, we examine what nations and blocs are on the hook for, and the potential consequences, as Mr Trump’s suspended “reciprocal” tariffs prepare to take effect. That will now not happen until 7 August.

Why was 1 August such an important date?

To understand the present day, we must first wind the clock back to early April.

Then, Mr Trump proudly showed off a board in the White House Rose Garden containing a list of countries and the tariffs they would immediately face in retaliation for the rates they impose on US-made goods. He called it “liberation day”.

The tariff numbers were big and financial markets took fright.

Just days later, the president announced a 90-day pause in those rates for all countries except China, to allow for negotiations.

The initial deadline of 9 July was then extended again to 1 August. Late on 31 July, Mr Trump signed the executive order but said that the tariff rates would not kick in for seven additional days to allow for the orders to be fully communicated.

Since April, only eight countries or trading blocs have agreed “deals” to limit the reciprocal tariffs and – in some cases – sectoral tariffs already in place.

Who has agreed a deal over the past 120 days?

The UK, Japan, Indonesia, the European Union and South Korea are among the eight to be facing lower rates than had been threatened back in April.

China has not really done a deal but it is no longer facing punitive tariffs above 100%.

Its decision to retaliate against US levies prompted a truce level to be agreed between the pair, pending further talks.

There’s a backlash against the EU over its deal, with many national leaders accusing the European Commission of giving in too easily. A broad 15% rate is to apply, down from the threatened 30%, while the bloc has also committed to US investment and to pay for US-produced natural gas.

Where does the UK stand?

We’ve already mentioned that the UK was the first to avert the worst of what was threatened.

While a 10% baseline tariff covers the vast majority of the goods we send to the US, aerospace products are exempt.

Our steel sector has not been subjected to Trump’s 50% tariffs and has been facing down a 25% rate. The government announced on Thursday that it would not apply under the terms of a quota system.

UK car exports were on a 25% rate until the end of June when the deal agreed in May took that down to 10% under a similar quota arrangement that exempts the first 100,000 cars from a levy.

Who has not done a deal?

Canada is among the big names facing a 35% baseline tariff rate. That is up from 25% and covers all goods not subject to a US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that involves rules of origin.

America is its biggest export market and it has long been in Trump’s sights.

Mexico, another country deeply ingrained in the US supply chain, is facing a 30% rate but has been given an extra 90 days to secure a deal.

Brazil is facing a 50% rate. For India, it’s 25%.

What are the consequences?

This is where it all gets a bit woolly – for good reasons.

The trade war is unprecedented in scale, given the global nature of modern business.

It takes time for official statistics to catch up, especially when tariff rates chop and change so much.

Any duties on exports to the United States are a threat to company sales and economic growth alike – in both the US and the rest of the world. Many carmakers, for example, have refused to offer guidance on their outlooks for revenue and profits.

Apple warned on Thursday night that US tariffs would add $1.1bn of costs in the three months to September alone.

Barriers to business are never good but the International Monetary Fund earlier this week raised its forecast for global economic growth this year from 2.8% to 3%.

Some of that increase can be explained by the deals involving major economies, including Japan, the EU and UK.

US growth figures have been skewed by the rush to beat import tariffs but the most recent employment data has signalled a significant slowdown in hiring, with a tick upwards in the jobless rate.

The big risk ahead?

It’s the prospect of another self-inflicted wound.

The elephant in the room is inflation. Countries imposing duties on their imports force the recipient of those goods to foot the additional bill. Do the buyers swallow it or pass it on?

The latest US data contained strong evidence that tariff charges were now making their way down the country’s supply chains, threatening to squeeze American consumers in the months ahead.

It’s why the US central bank has been refusing demands from Mr Trump to cut interest rates. You don’t slow the pace of price rises by making borrowing costs cheaper.

A prolonged period of higher inflation would not go down well with US businesses or voters. It’s why financial markets have followed a recent trend known as TACO, helping stock markets remain at record levels.

The belief is that Trump always chickens out. He may have to back down if inflation takes off.