February 29 - Births

Births

A person who is born on February 29 may be called a "leapling" or a "leap year baby". In non-leap years, some leaplings celebrate their birthday on either February 28 or March 1, while others only observe birthdays on the authentic intercalary dates.

In the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, a person born on February 29 legally attains the age of 18 on March 1 in the relevant year.

In cases of New Zealand citizens, the Parliament has decreed that if a date of birth was February 29, in non-leap years the legal birth date shall be the preceding day, February 28. This is affirmed in §2(2) of the Land Transport Act 1999.

In the United States, a person legally attains a given age on the day before their corresponding birthday, i.e., the anniversary of his birth corresponding to that age. Accordingly, anyone born on a Leap Day legally turns 21 on February 28th, twenty-one years later.

In Taiwan (Republic of China) and in New Zealand, the legal birthday of a leapling is February 28 in common years:

"If a period fixed by weeks, months, and years does not commence from the beginning of a week, month, or year, it ends with the ending of the day which proceeds the day of the last week, month, or year which corresponds to that on which it began to commence. But if there is no corresponding day in the last month, the period ends with the ending of the last day of the last month."

Thus, in England and Wales or in Hong Kong, a person born on February 29, 1996, will have legally reached 18 years old on March 1, 2014. If he or she was born in the United States, Taiwan or New Zealand, he or she legally becomes 18 on February 28, 2014, a day earlier.

There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out to be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance: As a child, Frederic was apprenticed to a band of pirates until his 21st birthday. Now, having passed his 21st year, he leaves the pirate band and falls in love. However, since he was born on February 29, that day will not arrive until he is in his eighties. As such, he must leave his fiancée and return to the pirates. It may be worked out from the opera's dialogue that Frederic's birthday is February 29, 1852 thus making the opera set in 1873. (This assumes that Frederic is aware that 1900 will not be a leap year. If not, the dates would be later by four years.) This plot point was also used in a Sherlock Holmes story based on the Basil Rathbone era, where a friend of Dr. Watson's is a baronet who is due to receive his inheritance on the New Year's Day of the year where his twenty-first birthday will be celebrated, only for the law to deprive him of the money as he was born on February 29; with the 84-year-old Baronet distraught at the news that 1900 is not a leap year, Holmes helps the Baronet fake his death long enough for his grandson- who is the appropriate age to receive the inheritance- to establish his claim and receive the money himself.

Other notable persons born on February 29:

• 1468 – Pope Paul III (d. 1549)
• 1568 – Juan Bautista Comes, Spanish composer (d. 1643)
• 1692 – John Byrom, English poet (d. 1763)
• 1724 – Eva Marie Veigel, ballet dancer and wife of actor David Garrick (d. 1822)
• 1736 – Ann Lee, American founder of Shakers (d. 1784)
• 1792 – Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer (d. 1868)
• 1812 – Sir James Wilson, Premier of Tasmania (d. 1880)
• 1828 – Emmeline B. Wells, American women's rights advocate (d. 1921)
• 1836 – Dickey Pearce, American baseball player and manager (d. 1908)
• 1840 – John Philip Holland, Irish inventor (d. 1914)
• 1848 – Arthur Giry, French historian (d. 1899)
• 1852 – Frank Gavan Duffy, Australian judge (d. 1936)
• 1852 – George Maximilianovich, 6th Duke of Leuchtenberg, Russian nobleman (d. 1912)
• 1860 – Herman Hollerith, American statistician (d. 1929)
• 1892 – Ed Appleton, American baseball player (d. 1932)
• 1892 – Augusta Savage, African-American sculptor (d. 1962)
• 1896 – Morarji Desai, Prime Minister of India (d. 1995)
• 1896 – Roy Parker, baseball player (d. 1954)
• 1896 – William A. Wellman, American film director (d. 1975)
• 1904 – Jimmy Dorsey, American bandleader (d. 1957)
• 1904 – Pepper Martin, baseball player (d. 1965)
• 1904 – Rukmini Devi Arundale, Indian dancer (d. 1986)
• 1908 – Balthus, French-Polish painter (d. 2001)
• 1908 – Dee Brown, American writer (d. 2002)
• 1908 – Alf Gover, English cricketer (d. 2001)
• 1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer and actress (d. 1994)
• 1920 – Arthur Franz, American actor (d. 2006)
• 1920 – James Mitchell, American actor (d. 2010)
• 1920 – Michèle Morgan, French actress
• 1920 – Howard Nemerov, American poet (d. 1991)
• 1920 – Ivan Ivanovich Petrov, Russian operatic bass (d. 2003)
• 1920 – Rolland W. Redlin, American politician (d. 2011)
• 1920 – Fyodor Abramov, Russian novelist (d. 1983)
• 1924 – Al Rosen, American baseball player
• 1924 – David Beattie, New Zealand Governor-General (d. 2001)
• 1924 – Carlos Humberto Romero, President of El Salvador
• 1928 – Joss Ackland, English actor
• 1928 – Vance Haynes, American archaeologist
• 1928 – Terry Lewis, Australian police commissioner
• 1928 – Seymour Papert, South African mathematician
• 1928 – Tempest Storm, American burlesque performer
• 1932 – Paul Giel, American baseball player (d. 2002)
• 1932 – Gene Golub, American mathematician (d. 2007)
• 1932 – Masten Gregory, American F1 Driver (d. 1985)
• 1932 – Reri Grist, African-American coloratura soprano
• 1932 – Jaguar, Brazilian cartoonist
• 1936 – Jack Lousma, American astronaut
• 1936 – Henri Richard, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1936 – Alex Rocco, American actor
• 1940 – Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople
• 1940 – Gopichand Hinduja, President, Hinduja Group of Companies
• 1940 – William H. Turner, Jr. American horse trainer
• 1944 – Ene Ergma, Estonian politician
• 1944 – Dennis Farina, American actor
• 1944 – Nicholas Frayling, Dean of Chichester Cathedral
• 1944 – Phyllis Frelich, American actress
• 1944 – Steve Mingori, American baseball player (d. 2008)
• 1944 – Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Italian illustrator
• 1948 – Jirō Akagawa, Japanese novelist
• 1948 – Gérard Darmon, French movie actor and singer
• 1948 – Ken Foree, American actor
• 1948 – Hermione Lee, President of Wolfson College, Oxford
• 1952 – Al Autry, American baseball player
• 1952 – Sharon Dahlonega Raiford Bush, American TV personality
• 1952 – Tim Powers, American writer
• 1952 – Raisa Smetanina, Russian cross-country skier
• 1952 – Bart Stupak, American congressman
• 1956 – Jonathan Coleman, Anglo-Australian entertainer
• 1956 – Jerry Fry, American baseball player
• 1956 – Bob Speller, Canadian politician
• 1956 – J. Randy Taraborrelli, American celebrity journalist
• 1956 – Aileen Wuornos, American serial killer (d. 2002)
• 1960 – Khaled, Algerian raï musician
• 1960 – Bill Long, American baseball player
• 1960 – Tony Robbins, American motivational speaker
• 1964 – Lyndon Byers, Canadian hockey player and radio personality
• 1964 – Mervyn Warren, American film & TV composer and musician (Take 6)
• 1968 – Suanne Braun, South African actress
• 1968 – Chucky Brown, American basketball player
• 1968 – Pete Fenson, American curler
• 1968 – Naoko Iijima, Japanese actress
• 1968 – Gonzalo Lira, Chilean-American novelist
• 1968 – Howard Tayler, American cartoonist & author
• 1968 – Bryce Paup, American football player
• 1968 – Wendi Peters, British actress
• 1968 – Eugene Volokh, American law professor
• 1968 – Frank Woodley, Australian comedian
• 1972 – Antonio Sabàto, Jr., Italian-born actor
• 1972 – Dave Williams, American singer (Drowning Pool) (d. 2002)
• 1972 – Saul Williams, American rapper, poet, and actor
• 1972 – Mike Pollitt, English footballer
• 1972 – Pedro Zamora, Cuban-born American activist (d. 1994)
• 1972 – Iván García, Cuban athlete
• 1976 – Katalin Kovács, Hungarian sprint canoer
• 1976 – Ja Rule, American rapper and actor
• 1976 – Terrence Long, American baseball player
• 1976 – Zoë Baker, New Zealand swimmer
• 1980 – Simon Gagné, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1980 – Patrick Côté, Canadian mixed martial artist
• 1980 – Taylor Twellman, American soccer player
• 1980 – Clinton Toopi, New Zealand rugby league footballer
• 1980 – Chris Conley, American musician (Saves the Day and Two Tongues)
• 1980 – Rubén Plaza, Spanish cyclist
• 1980 – Michail Mouroutsos, Greek Olympic taekwondo gold medalist
• 1984 – Darren Ambrose, English footballer
• 1984 – Cullen Jones, American swimmer
• 1984 – Nuria Martinez, Spanish basketball player
• 1984 – Adam Sinclair, Indian field hockey player
• 1984 – Dennis Walger, German rugby player
• 1984 – Cam Ward, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1984 – Mark Foster, American musician (Foster the People)
• 1988 – Scott Golbourne, English footballer
• 1988 – Benedikt Höwedes, German footballer
• 1988 – Bobby Sanguinetti, American ice hockey player
• 1992 – Perry Kitchen, American soccer player
• 1992 – Sean Abbott, Australian cricketer
• 1992 – Caitlin EJ Meyer, American actress