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How Are You Spending Leap Year Day, Saddle Brook, Elmwood Park?

Like the presidential election, Feb. 29 returns to calendars this year for the first time since 2012. 

Today is Leap Year Day.

Today is Leap Year Day.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The calendar gets Feb. 29 as an extra day every four years to compensate for the Earth's orbit around the sun, because a solar year is slightly longer than the 365-day calendar year. 

International Business times reports Julius Caesar introduced the concept of leap years more than 2,000 years ago. 

Pope Gregory XIII changed the prevalence of leap years to exclude century years ending in "00," except when also divisible by "400" in 1582, because solar years occur during a period of 365.2422 days, according to earthsky.org.

According to the International Business Times, a person has a one in 1,461 chance of being born Feb. 29. 

The tradition of women proposing marriage to men on leap years is believed to originate in fifth century Ireland when St. Bridget told St. Patrick that women had to wait too long for a proposal, according to International Business Times.

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