photos courtesy The Backlot and iambrianwong

That means you, Ja Rule and Anthony Robbins! (But not you, Danny Trejo or Brian Wong.)

We at the Observer are big fans of things that only come around every four years: the Olympics; presidential elections; production nights that end before 1 a.m, and, of course, leap years!

Celebrate today’s little cosmic quirk by munching on some fun facts, courtesy of ok50.com.

1. Today our year is 365.2425 days, off from our solar year by .00031, or one day’s error over 4,000 years.

2. If you’re a “Leaper,” you will have beaten the 1,506 odds against being born on Leap Day.

3. Leap Year was the traditional time that women could propose marriage. When the rules of courtship were stricter, women were only allowed to pop the question on one day every four years – February 29th.

4. There is a Greek superstition that claims couples have bad luck if they marry during a leap year. Apparently one in five engaged couples in Greece will avoid planning their wedding during a leap year.

5. Leap Year cocktail – never order a Leap Year cocktail by name. Instead, call out the ingredients: 1.5 oz gin, 0.5 oz Grand Marnier, 0.5 oz sweet vermouth, and a squeeze of lemon. Shake with crushed ice and pour into a chilled cocktail glass.

6. Leap Year Day Babies will never have a “Golden Birthday”. A Golden Birthday is when your age matches the number of the day of the month you were born on. Leap Year Day Babies will have to be 116 before they turn 29 on the 29th!

7. The premise of Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical The Pirates of Penzance is based on the birth of the main character on a leap day. Frederic was, as a child, apprenticed to a band of tenderhearted, orphaned pirates by his nurse who, being hard of hearing, had mistaken her master’s instructions to apprentice the boy to a pilot. Frederic, upon completing his 21st year, rejoices that he has fulfilled his indentures and is now free to return to respectable society. But it turns out that he was born on February 29, Leap Year Day, and he remains apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday (when he’s 84!).