If it’s your birthday today, you’re one in about 1,461 – which is not quite one in a million, but still pretty special… And you’re in good company – rapper Ja Rule and Aussie cricketer Sean Abbott are your fellow “leaplings” celebrating today. That nickname is just one of the fun facts about leap days we’ve learnt this week, which generally occur every 4 years but not always due to complex scientific reasons we won’t get into here… The reasons why leap years exist are also complicated, but the short version is that, without them, we’d gradually fall out of sync with the seasons. Leap days also used to prompt several traditions, including being the one day when women could propose to men – although that, and the postcards that used to poke fun at women about it, is a tad out of date nowadays…