Oldest Living Leap Year Baby Celebrates 25th Birthday

Born in 1916, Daisy Belle Ward is celebrating her 25th birthday – and no, that isn’t a typo.

Ward is America’s oldest-living “leap baby.” She was born on Feb. 29, 1916, which means she has only had 25 calendar birthdays, but has lived 100 years.

But don’t let the fact that she’s being wheeled around in a wheelchair fool you. This 100-year-old can still cut a rug on the dance floor, is very alert and loves to smile and laugh at great jokes.

MUST READ: 9 Ways To Make Sure You Live To 100 Or Older

Ward, who usually celebrates her birthday with a dinner amongst family and friends, went all out this year for the quarter-century/centennial bash, reports CBS News. The birthday girl came dressed in her Sunday best for the celebration, which included an 80-piece marching band, family, friends, and the press.

Why do we even have leap years anyway? Why not just get the whole 365 days and be done with it? Well, that’s just it, we were taught in school that the earth takes 365 days to make full revolution around the sun, but it’s actually 365 day, 5 hours and a number of minutes and seconds to be exact.

So, way back in 46 B.C., Julius Caesar realized the calendar they were following wasn’t working. So he consulted with an astronomer. Together they realized what the Egyptians had already discovered — that we needed that extra day every four years to stay on track. So he instituted the Julian calendar.

The solar year is actually only .242 days longer than the calendar year, and not an even .25. So when we add a full day every four years, we’re actually left with a surplus of roughly 11 minutes every year. And that can start to add up.

Then finally in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII fixed the extra minutes and instituted the Gregorian calendar which we still follow today.

Ms. Ward celebrates her three-digit birthday with a growing number of centenarians — people who live to be beyond a full century. In an effort to try to live long like her and others we did some digging and found three common traits that all centenarians have. Take a look below:

1. Female gender. It is overwhelmingly women who live to age 100. In 2010, 82.8 percent of centenarians were female. For every 100 females age 100 or older, there are only 20.7 males the same age. Females also make up 61.9 percent of those in their 80s and 72.2 percent of people in their 90s.

2. City living. A large majority of the oldest U.S. citizens live in urban areas. As age increases, the percentage living in…

…urban areas also increases. Some 85.7 percent of centenarians lived in urban areas in 2010.

3. Living with others. Just over a third of both female and male centenarians lived alone in their own home in 2010, but the majority of the oldest citizens live with others. As people get older, things in life happen—like you might become a widow or you might have a disability, and because of those circumstances, living arrangements often change

So we salute you Ms. Ward to this year and many more years to come.

“I made it,” said Daisy. “I made it to 100.”

Happy birthday!

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