Leap Year
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97 free Leap Year trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 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 97 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
Only century years divisible by 400 keep their leap day, which is why 2000 had a 29 February but 1700, 1800 and 1900 did not.
Q 03Which of these century years has only 28 days in February?
2100
2100 will be the first year divisible by four to skip its leap day since 1900, a correction that stops the calendar slipping behind the seasons.
Q 04Which holiday do many Orthodox churches celebrate on 7 January because their older calendar now runs 13 days behind?
Christmas
Christmas: those churches keep the calendar Rome used before 1582, whose surplus leap days have pushed its 25 December to 7 January on the modern one.
Q 05About how long will the Gregorian calendar take to drift a full day out of step with the seasons?
About 3,000 years
About 3,000 years: the calendar's average year of 365.2425 days is less than half a minute longer than the seasons' true cycle, so the error builds very slowly.
Q 06Which Roman leader introduced the calendar with a leap day every four years, in 46 BC?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar ordered the reform as dictator, and stretched 46 BC with extra months so that his new calendar could start in step with the seasons on 1 January 45 BC.
Q 07Rome's year 46 BC, stretched to 445 days to realign the calendar with the seasons, earned which nickname?
The year of confusion
The year of confusion was so named because two extra months were slotted in between November and December, on top of the usual leap month, to drag the calendar back into line.
Q 08Rome's leap-year calendar of 46 BC was modelled on the 365-day solar year of which older civilisation?
Egypt
Egypt: Rome's reformers swapped an erratic lunar calendar for the 365-day Egyptian solar year and added a leap day every fourth year, with the astronomer Sosigenes advising.
Q 09A leap day makes up for roughly how much extra time Earth needs each year to finish its orbit?
About 6 hours
About 6 hours: a year really lasts 365 days, 5 hours and 48 minutes or so, and four of those leftovers add up to roughly one extra day.
Q 10The word 'bissextile', an old term for a leap year, literally means what?
Twice sixth
Twice sixth: Romans counted days down to the first of March, and in a leap year the sixth day before it was counted a second time instead of adding a new date.
Q 11Which global sporting event is normally held in leap years?
The Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympics have fallen in leap years since 1896 with two exceptions: Paris 1900, a century year with no leap day, and Tokyo 2020, postponed to 2021.
Q 12In 1582, which month lost ten days when Catholic countries switched to the Gregorian calendar?
October
October 1582 jumped straight from Thursday the 4th to Friday the 15th in Spain, Italy and other Catholic lands, while the run of weekdays carried on unbroken.
Q 13On leap day 1940, who became the first Black performer to win an Academy Award?
Hattie McDaniel
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, by the popular account, though the 'law' is credited to Queen Margaret of Scotland, who in 1288 was a five-year-old living abroad, one reason historians doubt it.
Q 23By British leap-year tradition, a man who turned down a woman's proposal owed her several pairs of what?
Gloves
Hattie McDaniel won Best Supporting Actress for Gone with the Wind on 29 February 1940, yet at the ceremony she was seated at a segregated table at the side of the room.
Q 14Britain's 1752 calendar switch helps explain why which annual period there still begins on 6 April?
The tax year
The tax year once closed on Lady Day, 25 March; when the calendar jumped forward in 1752 the deadline was kept the same number of days away, landing in early 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 country, in 1923, became the last in Orthodox Europe to adopt the Gregorian calendar for civil use?
Greece
Greece switched on 1 March 1923, but only for civil life: the decree left religious matters alone, so Orthodox feasts kept their old dates.
Q 17Which country's calendar actually contained a February 30, in 1712?
Sweden
Sweden had botched a gradual switch to the new calendar, so in 1712 it added a second leap day, 30 February, to get back in step with the old one.
Q 18The term 'leap year' is thought to arise because, after a leap day, a fixed date does what?
Jumps two weekdays, not one
A date jumps two weekdays, not one, once 29 February intervenes: Halloween fell on a Tuesday in 2023 but a Thursday in 2024, leaping over Wednesday.
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
Brigid of Kildare, the legend goes, told St Patrick that men were too slow to propose and won women a day of their own every four years; the tale is not recorded before the 19th century.
Gloves were the forfeit, perhaps so that she could hide a hand with no engagement ring; in Finland the price of saying no was said to be enough fabric for a skirt.
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 25On the evening of 29 February 1504, which explorer used a predicted lunar eclipse to frighten Jamaicans into feeding his crew?
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus, stranded on Jamaica, knew from an almanac that the Moon would darken that night, so he warned the islanders it was a sign of divine anger and they resumed supplying food.
Q 26In which Gilbert and Sullivan opera must the hero, born on 29 February, serve out his apprenticeship until his 21st birthday?
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance turns on the catch: Frederic is 21 but, as a leap-day baby, has had only five birthdays, so his indenture binds him for another 63 years.
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 surly innkeeper Declan agrees to drive her across Ireland.
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, who topped the US charts with 'Always on Time', was born on 29 February 1976?
Ja Rule
Ja Rule was born Jeffrey Atkins in Queens on leap day 1976, so his 48th birthday in 2024 was only the twelfth to fall on his actual birth date.