Today we celebrate a day which is usually celebrated once every 4 years, its Leap Year Day or Leap Day.
Leap year is a calendar year that contains an additional day added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or seasonal year. February 29, is a date added to most years that are divisible by 4, and leap day is added in various solar calendars based on the Earth’s revolution around the Sun, including the Gregorian calendar stand in most of the world.
Leap day is observed because the Earth’s period o orbital revolution around the Sun takes approximately six hours longer than 365 the whole day. Leap days can present a particular problem in computing known as the Lear year bug, when February 29 is not handled correctly in logic that accepts or manipulates dates.
A person born on February 29 may be called a “leaping”, a “leaper”, or a “leap-year baby”. I non-leap years, some leaplings celebrate their birthday on either February 28 or March 1st, while others only observe birthdays on the authentic intercalary date.
Curiously, many Leap Day customs have revolved around romance and marriage. Tradition holds that in 5th-century Ireland, St. Bridget lamented to St. Patrick that women were not allowed to propose marriage to men. So legend has it that St. Patrick designated the only day that does not occur annually, February 29, as a day on which women would be allowed to propose to men. In some places, Leap Day thus became known as Bachelor’s Day.
So, today, celebrate if you are born on this day. Share on social media how you celebrate this day by using #LeapDay.
1940 Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African Amerian actress to win Oscar
On February 29, 1940, Gone with the Wind is honored with eight Oscars by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. An epic Southern romance set during the hard times of the Civil War, the movie swept the prestigious Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Film Editing, and Actress categories. However, the most momentous award that night undoubtedly went to Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of “Mammy,” a housemaid and a formerly enslaved woman. McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, was the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored with an Oscar.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1895, McDaniel demonstrated her talents as a singer and actress while growing up in Denver, Colorado. She left school while a teenager to become a performer in several traveling minstrel groups and in 1924 became one of the first African American women to sing on U.S. radio. With the onset of the Great Depression, she was forced to take work as a ladies’ washroom attendant in a Milwaukee club. The club, which hired only white performers, eventually made an exception and let her sing, and she performed there for a year before setting her sights on Hollywood.
(excerpted from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mcdaniel-wins-oscar)
