According to the book Legal Lunacy by author Sheryl-Lindsell Roberts, it’s against the law for a girl to call a guy for a date in Dyersburg, Tennessee. They obviously never heard of Sadie Hawkins Day.
Some interesting events have taken place on this day in history. According to the 1984 edition of The Daily Planet Almanac. “*1968: Discovery of Pulsars announced (Cambridge, England)
*1968: Presidential Commission recommends massive effort to end bitterness and destruction from racial disorders in cities. Suggests it might cost more to do this than the Vietnam War…”
In the future, Shrove Tuesday on February 29th, 2028, and Ash Wednesday on February 29th, 2096.
According to an article by Alice Cary in the 2008 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, “About 4 million people (including 22,500 Canadians) living today were born on February 29th.” It seems that “in the past, hospitals sometimes recorded either February 28 or March 1 on babies’ birth certificates, in an attempt to avoid ‘confusion.’”
We’ve heard the unusual situation considering those born on February 29th. In an article on February 28th in the Toronto Star by Daphne Gordon, she mentions a man, born on February 29th in 1944, who today will be celebrating his 16th birthday. Those born on February 29th are called ‘leaplings’. One very famous person was Gioacchino Rossini born in 1792.
Alice Cary in the 2008 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac wrote: “Computer programs have occasionally failed to recognize February 29th as a birthday.” There is a family in Norway, according to her article, that has three children born on February 29. They’re in the record books for the ‘most siblings born on Leap Day.”
Alice Cary also tells us that besides Sadie Hawkins’ Day, February 29th was also called ‘The Ladies’ Privilege’, and ‘Bachelor’s Day’.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, writing in Book One of Aurora Leigh, suggests “God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, / And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, / A gauntlet with a gift in it”. Something to remember on Sadie Hawkins Day, as well as on every other day of the year…
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Don Jackson
