Leap Year
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48 free Leap Year trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
46 free leap year trivia questions with answers. Every four years the calendar grows an extra day, and every four years the same questions come up at the dinner table: why does it happen, why did 1900 not get one, and is it true that women are supposed to propose? This quiz answers all of that and a good deal more. It starts with the easy stuff (how many days a leap year has, which month gets the extra day) and works up to questions that trip up even calendar nerds: which centurial years are leap years, how many days Pope Gregory deleted in 1582, what year Sweden printed a February 30, how many leap seconds have been added since 1972 and when they are due to be abolished. Along the way you get the Pirates of Penzance plot twist, Bachelor's Day and Sadie Hawkins, the town that named itself Leap Year Capital of the World, and famous people born on February 29. It works as a Leap Day round for a pub quiz, a classroom warm-up or a solo test. Every answer was checked against a documented source and the citation sits under each explanation.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many days does a leap year contain in the Gregorian calendar?
366
A leap year has 366 days: February gets a 29th day so the calendar keeps pace with the roughly 365.24-day solar year; lunisolar calendars such as the Hebrew one add a whole month instead.
Q 02Under the Gregorian rule, a year divisible by 100 is a leap year only if it is also divisible by what?
400
That is why 2000 was a leap year but 1900 was not and 2100 will not be; the rule removes three leap days every 400 years.
Q 03Which of these years was NOT a leap year?
2100
The February 2100 calendar will go straight from the 28th to March 1, just as 1900's did; 1900's missing day famously breaks Microsoft Excel, which still treats it as a leap year for compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3.
Q 04Roughly how far does the Julian calendar, with its 365.25-day year, drift from the true seasons?
About 3 days every 400 years
About 3 days every 400 years: the Julian year is 365.25 days but the seasons repeat every 365.2422, a surplus of 0.0078 days a year, so the calendar slips a full day roughly every 128 years.
Q 05The average Gregorian calendar year works out to how many days?
365.2425
365.2425 days: 400 Gregorian years hold 97 leap days, so 146,097 days divided by 400; the mean tropical year is about 365.2422, leaving a drift of one day in roughly 3,000 years.
Q 06Which Roman leader introduced the calendar with a leap day every four years, in 46 BC?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar, as pontifex maximus, decreed the reform in 46 BC; the Julian calendar, with a 365-day year and one leap day every four years, took effect on 1 January 45 BC.
Q 07To realign the seasons before the new calendar began, the year 46 BC was stretched to how many days?
445
445 days: besides the usual intercalary month after February, two extra months of 33 and 34 days were inserted between November and December, earning 46 BC the nickname 'the last year of confusion'.
Q 08Which Alexandrian astronomer is considered the main designer of Caesar's calendar reform?
Sosigenes
Pliny the Elder is the source for his role; Sosigenes may also have written the almanac Caesar published to help Romans use the new system.
Q 09In the original Julian calendar the leap day was created not by adding a 29th day but by doing what?
Doubling February 24
The doubled day was the 'twice sixth' day before the Kalends of March, which is where the word 'bissextile' for a leap year comes from.
Q 10The word 'bissextile', an old term for a leap year, literally means what?
Twice sixth
It refers to the doubled sixth day before the Kalends of March; February 29 was not formally recognised in British law until the Calendar Act of 1750.
Q 11Which pope's 1582 papal bull instituted the calendar most of the world uses today?
Gregory XIII
Gregory XIII issued the bull Inter gravissimas on 24 February 1582, ordering the October skip and the new century-year rule; the Jesuit mathematician Christopher Clavius wrote the defence of the scheme.
Q 12When the reform took effect in October 1582, how many days were skipped?
10
Thursday 4 October was followed directly by Friday 15 October; the weekday cycle was left untouched.
Q 13The Calabrian doctor whose proposal formed the basis of the Gregorian reform was named what?
Aloysius Lilius
Aloysius Lilius (Luigi Lilio), a physician from Calabria, proposed removing the accumulated drift gradually over forty years; Christopher Clavius argued for one clean cut, and the pope took Clavius's advice.
Q 21The Irish leap-day proposal tradition is known by what name?
Bachelor's Day
Bachelor's Day, also called Ladies' Privilege, is the Irish name for 29 February proposals; folklore says a man who refused owed the woman a silk gown to soften the blow.
Q 22A dubious story of a 1288 Scottish leap-year law says proposing women had to wear what?
A red petticoat
A red petticoat, worn visibly below the hem as a warning; the 'law' is attributed to Queen Margaret of Scotland, who in 1288 was five years old and living in Norway, one reason historians doubt it.
Q 23In Finland, what is a man traditionally expected to buy a woman if he turns down her leap-day proposal?
Fabric for a skirt
Q 14Britain and its empire, including the American colonies, adopted the Gregorian calendar in which year?
1752
1752: Britain's Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 brought in the Gregorian calendar that September, and the shift of the old Lady Day quarter-day of 25 March is why the UK tax year begins on 6 April.
Q 15Britain's Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 cut how many days from September when it took effect?
Eleven
Eleven days: Wednesday 2 September was followed by Thursday 14 September; the same act moved the start of England's legal year from 25 March to 1 January, as Scotland had done in 1600.
Q 16Which was the last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar for civil use, in 1923?
Greece
Orthodox countries held out longest; Russia switched in 1918 after the revolution, which is why the 'October Revolution' happened in November by the new calendar.
Q 17Which country's calendar actually contained a February 30, in 1712?
Sweden
Sweden had botched a gradual switch to the Gregorian calendar and added a second leap day to get back onto the Julian system.
Q 18The term 'leap year' probably comes from the fact that after the extra day, a fixed date does what?
Jumps two weekdays, not one
A date normally moves forward one day of the week each year; after February 29 it jumps two, 'leaping' over a day.
Q 19A person born on February 29 is often called a what?
Leapling
Leapling is the usual nickname, alongside 'leaper' and 'leap-day baby'; the odds of a 29 February birth are about 1 in 1,461, and a leapling born in 1996 had seen only seven true birthdays by 2024.
Q 20Who supposedly struck the deal with St Patrick allowing women to propose in a leap year?
Brigid of Kildare
The legend has Brigid complaining to Saint Patrick that men were too slow to propose; he offered one day every seven years and she talked him down to four.
Fabric for a skirt: Finnish custom says a man who declines a 29 February proposal must buy the woman enough cloth to make a skirt; elsewhere in Europe the forfeit was twelve pairs of gloves.
Q 24The Leap Year cocktail was created in 1928 at which London hotel?
The Savoy
The Savoy: head barman Harry Craddock mixed the Leap Year cocktail (gin, Grand Marnier, sweet vermouth, lemon) for the hotel's 29 February 1928 celebrations and printed it in The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930.
Q 25Which pair of towns declared themselves the joint 'Leap Year Capital of the World' in 1988?
Anthony, Texas and Anthony, New Mexico
Anthony, Texas and Anthony, New Mexico, which straddle the state line, took the title in 1988 at the urging of resident Mary Ann Brown, born on 29 February; a leap-year birthday festival followed.
Q 26In which year does Frederic of The Pirates of Penzance say he will come of age?
1940
1940: born on 29 February, Frederic has had only five birthdays at 21, so he sings 'In 1940 I of age shall be'; Gilbert overlooked that 1900 was not a leap year, which would push it to 1944.
Q 27Which actress stars with Matthew Goode in Leap Year (2010), about proposing in Ireland on February 29?
Amy Adams
Amy Adams plays Anna, who sets out for Dublin to propose on 29 February but is blown off course to Dingle, where Matthew Goode's innkeeper Declan drives her across Ireland; it grossed $32.7 million.
Q 28Sadie Hawkins Day, often confused with Leap Day, originated in which comic strip?
Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner: Al Capp introduced Sadie Hawkins Day on November 15, 1937 as a footrace in which Dogpatch's unmarried women chased the bachelors; college campuses turned it into a girl-asks-boy dance.
Q 29Which composer of The Barber of Seville was born on February 29, 1792?
Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Rossini, born in Pesaro on 29 February 1792, lived to 76 but saw only 18 actual birthdays because 1800 was not a leap year; Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, was born on 29 February 1736.
Q 30Which rapper was born on 29 February 1976?
Ja Rule
Ja Rule (Jeffrey Atkins) was born in Queens, New York on 29 February 1976; motivational speaker Tony Robbins (1960) and Spanish politician Pedro Sánchez (1972) share the birthday.