50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many days does a leap year contain in the Gregorian calendar?
366
The extra day keeps the calendar year lined up with the seasons, which is why some lunisolar calendars 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
By 1582 that slow slip had pushed the spring equinox ten days early, which is what prompted the Gregorian reform.
Q 05The average Gregorian calendar year works out to how many days?
365.2425
The mean tropical year is about 365.2422 days, so the Gregorian calendar still gains roughly a day every 3,000 years or so.
Q 06Which Roman leader introduced the calendar with a leap day every four years, in 46 BC?
Julius Caesar
The astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria is generally credited as the principal designer of the reform that bears Caesar's name.
Q 07To realign the seasons before the new calendar began, the year 46 BC was stretched to how many days?
445
Two extra intercalary months were shoved in between November and December, and the year is still called 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
The bull was called Inter gravissimas; the reform itself was based on a proposal by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius and argued through by the mathematician Christopher Clavius.
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
Lilius wanted the ten-day drift removed gradually over forty years; Clavius argued for one clean cut, and Gregory took Clavius's advice.
Q 21The Irish leap-day proposal tradition is known by what name?
Bachelor's Day
It is also called Ladies' Privilege, and a man who refused was traditionally expected to buy the woman gloves, a silk gown or, by the mid-20th century, a fur coat.
Q 22A dubious story of a 1288 Scottish leap-year law says proposing women had to wear what?
A red petticoat
The law is attributed to Queen Margaret of Scotland, who at the time was five years old and living in Norway, which is 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
By then the gap had grown to eleven days, and the UK tax year still ends on 5 April, eleven days on from the old Lady Day quarter-day of 25 March.
Q 15Britain's Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 removed how many days from September 1752?
Eleven
The same act moved the start of the legal year in England from 25 March to 1 January, which Scotland had already 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
In the UK, Hong Kong and Taiwan a leapling's legal birthday in common years is 1 March; other places use 28 February.
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.
Elsewhere in Europe the price was twelve pairs of gloves, said to be for hiding the embarrassment of a ringless hand.
Q 24In which country is marrying during a leap year considered unlucky?
Greece
The superstition sits oddly beside the Irish tradition that treats the same year as the best time to propose.
Q 25Which pair of towns declared themselves the joint 'Leap Year Capital of the World' in 1988?
Anthony, Texas and Anthony, New Mexico
The idea came from resident Mary Ann Brown, herself a leapling; the twin towns still hold a leap-year birthday parade and festival every four years.
Q 26Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance was born on February 29. How old will he be at his 21st birthday?
88
The joke depends on 1900 not being a leap year; the opera premiered in New York on 31 December 1879, the only G&S work to open officially in the United States.
Q 27Which actress stars with Matthew Goode in Leap Year (2010), about proposing in Ireland on February 29?
Amy Adams
Her character Anna is heading for Dublin but a storm lands her in Dingle; the film made $32.7 million on a $19 million budget.
Q 28Sadie Hawkins Day, often confused with Leap Day, originated in which comic strip?
Li'l Abner
Al Capp introduced it on November 15, 1937, as a footrace in which Dogpatch's unmarried women chased the bachelors; college campuses turned it into a dance.
Q 29Which composer of The Barber of Seville was born on February 29, 1792?
Gioachino Rossini
He lived to 76 but celebrated only 18 actual birthdays; Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, was another February 29 baby, in 1736.
Q 30Which rapper, born February 29, 1976, is one of the best-known modern leaplings?
Ja Rule
Motivational speaker Tony Robbins (1960) and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez (1972) share the birthday.