New Year 2024 has 366 days; on February 29 it will be 32 years since the referendum on BiH independence

(Patria) - The upcoming 2024 will be a leap year and will have 366 days. Thus, February next year will have 29 days. The last leap year was 2020.

According to some beliefs, years with 366 days encourage women to propose to men and make birthday celebrations very confusing for a certain number of the human population.

How to know which year is a leap year?

Very simple: if the last two digits of the year are divisible by four (for example: 2016, 2020, 2024…), then it is a leap year. Years marking the end of a century are exempt from this rule. They must be divisible by 400 to be leap years. Thus, 2000 and 2400 are leap years, but 2100 will not be.

Why do women propose to men on February 29?

After Pope Gregory XIII proclaimed the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the idea of adding February 29 every four years seemed so ridiculous that a comedic play was staged in British theater, highlighting that women should swap skirts for trousers and behave like men on that day. The play was marked as satire, but feminists of the time were inspired; by the 1700s, women were using February 29 to propose marriage to men. The tradition, now called "Bachelor’s Day," peaked in the early 1900s and continues to be observed in the United Kingdom today, according to Reader’s Digest.

There are about 4 million people in the world born on this day. The probability of a child being born on February 29 is 1:1,500.

When it comes to BiH, 1992 was a leap year but also the year the bloody aggression against BiH began. However, precisely on February 29 and March 1, the referendum on BiH's independence from the SFRY was held, and citizens that day chose an independent BiH state of equal citizens, peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Muslims, Serbs, Croats, and members of other nations living in it.

Of the total number of voters 3,253,847, 2,073,568 citizens with voting rights turned out and voted in the republican referendum to determine the status of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or 64.31 percent, according to extracts from general voter lists 1,989,786 and based on certificates of registration in the general voter list 83,535 voters. There were 2,067,969 valid ballots, or 64.14 percent. Of the total number of valid ballots, 2,061,932 voters voted "FOR" or 99.44 percent, while 6,037 voted "AGAINST" or 0.29 percent, and there were 5,227 invalid ballots, or 0.25 percent.

Today, when BiH is in danger from some black scenarios, threats of secession by the RS, the dismantling of state institutions, and the strengthening of nationalism, it is more necessary than ever to remind of its history and the citizens who had the courage and love to fight for BiH's independence.

(A.Vrabac)