February 29
February 29 — leap day — is the 60th day of a leap year. The Gregorian rule keeps it in years divisible by 4 (with century-year corrections), keeping the calendar synchronised with the solar tropical year. It occurs roughly every four years.
Day of year
60
Days remaining
306
ISO week
9
Zodiac
Pisces
Season
Winter
Sun declination
-8.3°
External references
Curated jump-off points to the major almanacs, encyclopaedias and primary sources for this date.
Wikipedia: this day →Britannica: this day →LoC: Today in History →History.com: this day →On-This-Day.com →BBC: On This Day →NYT: this day →Time and Date →NASA APOD archive →U.S. Naval Observatory →Wolfram|Alpha →Wikidata →Google Books →JSTOR →Internet Archive →
— ad slot (replace with AdSense ins tag) —
Astronomy
Computed via Cooper's formula. Positive declination = Sun north of the celestial equator (Northern Hemisphere summer).
- Leap day exists to keep the average calendar year (365.2425 days) close to the tropical year (~365.2422 days).
Position in the year
Holidays & observances
- Bachelor's Day (folklore — women may propose to men)
- Rare Disease Day (held on the rarest day)
Events
A selection of widely-documented historical events that took place on this date. Years marked BCE follow standard astronomical convention.
- 1504 — Christopher Columbus, stranded in Jamaica, used a predicted lunar eclipse to terrify the local Arawak into resupplying his crew. ↗(522 years ago)
- 1692 — In Salem Village, Massachusetts, the first warrants were issued in the Salem witch trials. ↗(334 years ago)
- 1940 — Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award, for Gone with the Wind. ↗(86 years ago)
- 1960 — A magnitude-5.7 earthquake near Agadir, Morocco killed an estimated 12,000 people. ↗(66 years ago)
Notable births
Notable deaths
- 1604 — John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. ↗(422 years ago)
Numerical & calendrical curiosities
| Day-of-year (60) | 2^2 × 3 × 5 · composite (no) |
|---|---|
| Days remaining (306) | 2 × 3^2 × 17 |
| Date code DDMMYYYY | 29022026 · next palindrome year: 2092 |
| Sun declination | -8.29° (Cooper approximation) |
| Distance from solstice | 71 days |