Leap day means an extra job for Adrie Warmenhoven every four years. As director of the Isinga Planetarium in Franeker, it is up to him to make sure the history of the astronomical device remains consistent.

It’s a job he always looks forward to. “You’re stepping into the gears of Isenga himself. You can’t get any closer to him than what he created 240 years ago. He’s really very special.”

He goes to the building’s attic to disconnect the wheel of history and reset it for a day. Eisinga himself has drawn up a guide for this, although these days Warmenhoven ignores his advice to “a short final candle on the candlestick carefully so as not to cause a fire”.

By moving the wheel back one degree, March 1 becomes February 28 again, so the device will work the same way again tomorrow. “We can explain that well to visitors today.”

This morning was the first time Warmenhofen had been allowed to do so since the planetarium became a World Heritage Site last year, but it was no different. “No, we’re dealing with it like it was before we got into this situation.”

The director explains that shutting down the system for a day, as visitors sometimes suggest, is not an option: “After that everything stops and the planets in the planetarium no longer rotate. And they have no knowledge of our calendar.”

Few other Dutchmen would have such a specific additional task today. Of course, it is an additional celebration for the more than 11,000 Dutch people who can now celebrate their birthday on the appropriate date.

Isabelle, 12, thinks her birthday is a special day. “It’s decorated a little bit, and you get more gifts. I feel like I’m celebrating a lot more.”

Although there are drawbacks too, when classmates find out that this is only her third official birthday. “There are always kids who say: ‘You’re only three, you have to go to kindergarten.’ Then I think: Why, it’s a special appointment.”

Statistically there must be about 5 million worldwide Hops Jumpers are loosely translated. In practice there may be slightly less. like him See CBS That slightly fewer babies are born on leap days. For example, there were 362 children four years ago compared to an average of 391 children on a Saturday in February that year.

The birth rate was also slightly delayed on other leap days in this century. This suggests that parents who can plan a birth, such as a caesarean section, avoid the February 29 date.

There are also people who choose this date consciously, for example to get married. Today, 2,200 couples are celebrating their wedding anniversaries, including nine couples having a diamond wedding (60 years, or 15 leap years).

Laura and Harry from Boxtel also chose to have a wedding on this special date this year. “Now I can only forget my wedding date once every four years,” Harry joked v. Omrup Brabant.

The special date is the real reason for the couple. The same was true for Karin Brouwers from Berkel Enschot 16 years ago when she married Johan. “Our wedding date had to be something special. Initially we looked at Friday the 13th, but it was June and we wanted to get married in the winter, so it became a leap day.”

CBS sees more lovers making this choice: On leap days, the number of marriages is always twice as many as on regular days. 109 versus 53 last in 2020, for example.

However, wedding registrar Ria Kuipers, from South Holland, hasn’t had one in 28 years. She tells Omroep West. “The same goes for this year. I have weddings scheduled all week, but not on February 29. So I’ll be going to the hairdresser on that day.”