A Leap year is often pictured with a leaping frog which is a good visual compared to the more fancy terms like "intercalary year" or a "bissextile year". This strange and useful extra day is added to make sure that in the coming years when we say summer we refer to the warmer part of the year. If the leap day is not added each year, the calendar will shift by a day, which means in 180 years the summer time will be oddly cold, to overcome this a day is added every four years. With different Calendars a similar process is applied, in the Hebrew calendar, a 13th lunar month is added seven times every 19 years. That is a long time to wait to change the days.
Of all the thousands of Adolphs in history, I only came across one born on the 29th of February, and luckily he was a unique character with his name printed (rather his names) in the 1978 edition of the Guinness book of records, for the worlds longest name.
The full list of his names are as follows, Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus.
As for his surname because of its length has often been misspelled, the longest variant is;
Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvorangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolfhunderttausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvonderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgenachtmittungsteinundsiebeniridiumelektrischmotorsgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchennachbarschaftdersternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneuerassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvorandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum, Senior.
"Tells a story of a wolf-killer, a resident of a stone house in a village, whose ancestors were conscientious shepherds whose sheep were well fed and carefully guarded against attack by ferocious enemies and whose ancestors 1,200,000 years before the first Earth man, in a space ship made of tungsten and seven iridium motors and using light as a source of power, started a long journey across interstellar space, searching for a star around which was an inhabitable planet where they could establish a new race of intelligent mankind and where they would live long, happy lives and be free from attack by other intelligentsia from the outer space from whence they came.
Ages ago, there were conscientious shepherds whose sheep were well tended and carefully protected against attack by their rapacious enemies. Twelve hundred thousand years ago there appeared before these first Earthmen, at night, a spaceship powered by seven stone and iridium electric motors. It had originally been launched on its long trip into stellar space in the search for neighboring stars that might have planets revolving about them that were inhabitable and on which planets a new race of intelligent humanity might propagate itself and rejoice for life, without fear of attack by other intelligent beings from interstellar space.
Similar to the y2k problem, and a similar issue of the leap year, and us gaining or losing days, old computers were not programmed to hold such long names to print in phone books. For example an IBM 7074 computer used for an insurance company was able to process hundreds of thousands of policies but could not handle Mr. Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, thus his policy had to be done by hand. Adolph used this knowledge to his advantage, apparently he refused to pay his utility bill since his name was not spelled right and therefore not referring to him.
"happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear,
Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus.
Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvorangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolfhunderttausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvonderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgenachtmittungsteinundsiebeniridiumelektrischmotorsgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchennachbarschaftdersternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneuerassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvorandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum, Senior.
Happy birthday to you!
At least you only have to sing this song once every four years!
http://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/worlds_longest_surname/P20/
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/ea3cb02517284d59a083bd4b03c66621
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19640625&id=HtlNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=w4oDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3209,7778381&hl=en
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/29586136/
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2202&dat=19730912&id=tIolAAAAIBAJ&sjid=sfIFAAAAIBAJ&pg=998,4037400&hl=en