Celebrities with Feb. 29 birthdays:
Ja Rule (rapper)
Lord Byron (poet)
Pope Paul III
Jerry Gergich (character in "Parks and Recreation")
Darren Ambrose (soccer player)
Jessica Long (swimmer)
Jimmy Dorsey (composer)
Pepper Martin (baseball player)
(via Famous Birthdays)
Thomas Mian, a sophomore public relations and advertising major, has only had four birthdays. Mian is a “leapling” or a “leaper,” meaning he was born on Feb. 29, a day that only occurs every four years.
Mian said he has only ever met two other people who share his birthday, and one of them went to high school with him. The chance of being born on Feb. 29 is one in 1,461, with about 5 million “leaplings” alive today. Mian was born in 1996, so this will be the fifth time he’s gotten to celebrate on the actual day of his birth. He remembers his teachers making an event of it and having parties when he was in elementary school.
Mian’s mother, Stephanie, said he was supposed to be born on March 7, “but he had to have things his way.” There were two other babies born that day in the same hospital, and the local newspaper wanted to take their picture.
“We always tease him that he’s going to be five instead of twenty,” she said.
The reason February sometimes has an extra day is because it takes slightly more than 365 days for the Earth to make it all the way around the sun – precisely 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. Leap Day was developed in 45 BC by Julius Caesar’s astronomer, Sosigenes.Mian said the most common question he’s asked is which day he celebrates his birthday during years that don’t have an extra day. He’s celebrated on different days in the past.
Since his 21st birthday will occur in a non-leap year, he will be legally allowed to drink on Feb. 28 next year.
Some believe people born on Leap Day have special talents, strange personalities, or unique powers. Mian said he doesn’t know if this is true, but there are a number of famous people who share his birthday: rapper Ja Rule, poet Lord Byron, Pope Paul III, Jerry Gergich from "Parks and Recreation" and soccer player Darren Ambrose. Different cultures have varying views on Leap Day. In Greece, it is thought to be bad luck to get married in a leap year, but in other countries, it’s tradition for women to propose marriage on Feb. 29. It’s unknown whether this practice originated with St. Patrick in Ireland or then-5-year-old Scottish Queen Margaret. Some Russians believe leap years mean death and dangerous weather, while Scottish farmers think leap year brings bad luck for their plants and animals.
Even though Mian's true birthday doesn't occur every year, he embraces the rarity of his birthday.
“I love having a kind of unique birthday, it’s cool,” Mian said. He hopes to celebrate it with his friends this year.
Shown above is Mian at 4-months-old.
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