For a day that comes rarely to the calendar, Google has doodled a rare two-in-one doodle that commemorates not only the leap day but also the 220th birth anniversary of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini.
Since the leap years and leap days are usually associated with frogs, the leaping ambhibians, the Google doodle on February 29 has a number of frogs, all four of them.
The doodle is inspired by Gioachino Antonio Rossini's famous 1816 comic opera The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia), one of the most performed operas. Of the four frogs in the scene, one is at the piano and the soprano is the only one leaping. The barber frog is Figaro and the frog getting a shave is Count Almaviva (Characters created by French playright Pierre Beaumarchais and The Barber of Seville is one of the three Figaro plays penned by him).
An 1870 Portrait of Gioachino Rossini by Francesco Hayez
Rossini's other famous operas include William Tell (1829), Semiramide (1823) and Cinderella (1817). Gioachino Rossini was born on February 29, 1792 (died November 13, 1868). The possibility of someone's birthday falling on February 29 is 1 in 1461 (as four years including a leap year have 1461 days in total) that in turn calculates to a mere 0.068 per cent chance.
The Gioachino Rossini leap year Google doodle is the third leap year doodle in Google's history. The previous two were put up on 2004 and 2008. There was no leap day doodle in the year 2000.
By our calculations this is the 1314th Google doodle since the first ever on for the Burning Man Festival back on August 30, 1998.
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