Are you a Leaper??

[Lady J]

“Persons born on leap day, February 29, are called "leaplings" or "leapers." However fun it may be to rib them for enjoying 75 percent fewer birthdays than the rest of us over the course of their lives, they do have the special privilege, between leap years, of celebrating their nativity a full day earlier if they so choose. It was once thought that leapling babies would inevitably prove sickly and "hard to raise," though no one remembers why.

Ironically, notwithstanding the fact that the whole point of adding an extra day to February every four years was to align the human measurement of time more closely with nature, in days gone by folks apparently believed that monkeying with the calendar like that might actually throw nature out of whack, even hampering the raising of crops and livestock. It used to be said, for example, that beans and peas planted during a leap year "grow the wrong way" — whatever that means — and, in the words of the Scots, "Leap year was never a good sheep year." “

Via Urban Legends

Some famous (and infamous) people born on February 29 include:

• 1468 – Pope Paul III (d. 1549)

• 1792 – Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer (William Tell, The Barber of Seville) (d. 1868)

• 1896 – Morarji Desai, former Indian prime minister (d. 1995)

• 1904 – Jimmy Dorsey, was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader.

• 1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer (d. 1994)

• 1924 – Al Rosen, American baseball player

• 1924 – Carlos Humberto Romero, former president of El Salvador

• 1944 – Dennis Farina, Actor, most known for Law & Order, Get Shorty, and Luck.

• 1956 – Aileen Wuornos, an American serial killer who killed seven men in Florida in 1989 and 1990

• 1960 – Richard Ramirez, Satanic worshipper, serial killer and rapist and was named The Night Stalker, after terrorizing Los Angeles during a year long killing and raping spree

• 1960 – Anthony (Tony) Robbins, American motivational speaker

• 1964 – Lyndon Byers, Canadian hockey player

• 1972 – Antonio Sabàto Jr, Italian-born actor

• 1972 - Saul Williams, poet and actor, known for his leading role in the 1998 film Slam

• 1976 – Ja Rule, American rapper and actor

• 1980 – Chris Conley, American musician and songwriter/composer