February 29 is a leap day (or “leap year day”)—an intercalary date added periodically to create leap years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the 60th day of a leap year in both Julian and Gregorian calendars, and 306 days remain until the end of the leap year. It is the last day of February in leap years, with the exception of 1712 in Sweden. It is also the last day of meteorological winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the last day of meteorological summer in the Southern Hemisphere in leap years.
In the Gregorian calendar, the standard civil calendar used in most of the world, February 29 is added in each year that is an integer multiple of four, unless it is evenly divisible by 100 but not by 400. For example, 1900 was not a leap year, but 2000 was. The Julian calendar—since 1923 a liturgical calendar—has a February 29 every fourth year without exception. Consequently, February 29 in the Julian calendar, since 1900, falls 13 days later than February 29 in the Gregorian, until the year 2100
The convention of using February 29 was not widely accepted before the 15th century; from Julian’s edict until the 16th century (formally), February 24 was doubled instead.
Holidays
- As a Christian feast day:
- Saint John Cassian
- February 29 in the Orthodox church
- Rare Disease Day (in leap years; usually celebrated in common years on February 28)
- Bachelor’s Day (Ireland and United Kingdom)
- 888 – Odo, count of Paris, is crowned king of West Francia (France) by Archbishop Walter of Sens at Compiègne.
- 1504 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Jamaican natives to provide him with supplies.
1644 – Abel Tasman‘s second Pacific voyage begins as he leaves Batavia in command of three ships.
1704 – In Queen Anne’s War, French forces and Native Americans stage a raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts Bay Colony, killing 56 villagers and taking more than 100 captive.
1712 – February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Julian calendar.
1720 – Ulrika Eleonora, Queen of Sweden abdicates in favour of her husband, who becomes King Frederick I on March 24.
1768 – Polish nobles form the Bar Confederation.
1796 – The Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain comes into force, facilitating ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.
1892 – St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated.
1908 – James Madison University is founded at Harrisonburg, Virginia in the United States as The State Normal and Industrial School for Women by the Virginia General Assembly.
1912 – The Piedra Movediza (Moving Stone) of Tandil falls and breaks.
1916 – Tokelau is annexed by the United Kingdom.
1916 – In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill and mine workers is raised from 12 to 14 years old.
1920 – The Czechoslovak National Assembly adopts the Constitution.
1936 – The February 26 Incident in Tokyo ends.
1940 – For her performance as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
1940 – Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations.
1940 – In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden’s consul general in San Francisco.
1944 – The Admiralty Islands are invaded in Operation Brewer, led by American general Douglas MacArthur, in World War II.
1960 – The 5.7 Mw Agadir earthquake shakes coastal Morocco with a maximum perceived intensity of X (Extreme), destroying Agadir and leaving 12,000 dead and another 12,000 injured.
1972 – South Korea withdraws 11,000 of its 48,000 troops from Vietnam as part of Nixon’s Vietnamization policy in the Vietnam War.
1980 – Gordie Howe of the Hartford Whalers makes NHL history as he scores his 800th goal.[25]
- 1984 – Pierre Trudeau announces his retirement as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister of Canada.[26]
- 1988 – South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 other clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.[27]
- 1988 – Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the House of Commons of Canada to come out as gay.[28]
- 1992 – First day of Bosnia and Herzegovina independence referendum.[29]
- 1996 – Faucett Perú Flight 251 crashes in the Andes; all 123 passengers and crew are killed.[30]
- 1996 – The Siege of Sarajevo officially ends.
- 2000 – Chechens attack a guard post near Ulus Kert, eventually killing 84 Russian paratroopers during the Second Chechen War.
- 2004 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide is removed as president of Haiti following a coup.
- 2008 – The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence withdraws Prince Harry from a tour of Afghanistan after news of his deployment is leaked to foreign media.
- 2008 – Misha Defonseca admits to fabricating her memoir, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, in which she claims to have lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust.
- 2012 – North Korea agrees to suspend uranium enrichment and nuclear and long-range missile tests in return for US food aid.
- David Thomas Jones dies. He was an English actor and singer. Best known as a member of the band The Monkees and a co-star of the TV series The Monkees (1966–1968), Jones was considered a teen idol.
- 2016 – At least 40 people are killed and 58 others wounded following a suicide bombing by ISIL at a Shi’ite funeral in the city of Miqdadiyah, Diyala.
- 2020 – During a demonstration, pro-government colectivos shoot at disputed President and Speaker of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó and his supporters in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, leaving five injured.
- 2020 – The United States and the Taliban sign the Doha Agreement for bringing peace to Afghanistan.
- 2020 – Muhyiddin Yassin is appointed as the 8th Prime Minister of Malaysia, amid the 2020 Malaysian political crisis.
- 2024 – The Al-Rashid massacre took place on al-Rashid street at the Al-Nabulsi roundabout to the west of Gaza City in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip where more than 100 Palestinians were killed and over 750 were wounded after Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid amidst the Israel–Hamas war.
