“Why does February has 28/29 days?” asked my son as he watched the advertisement on TV. With my son, I waited for Kajol to give us the answer. Alas Kajol went off advising me to give Bachoon ke dimaag ke vikas ki drink! Did you know the word calendar is related to money! This article explains types of Calendar, how Calendar changed, Meaning of Name of the months

February has 28 days because

The calendar has evolved over time, explained below, as our understanding for how earth, the moon move improved. The calendar we use now is the Gregorian calendar . Gregorian calendar replaced the previous Julian calendar on 1 Apr 1582 which we celebrate as April Fool’s day. In around 45 B.C., Julius Caesar commissioned an expert to put aside the lunar origins of the Roman calendar and make it sun-based, like the Egyptian. There were an average of 365.25 days each year, twelve months with alternating lengths of 31 and 30 days. The exception was February which had 29 days and Leap year gave February 30 days to keep the calendar correct. The senate had the month of Quintilius renamed July after Caesar as an honour to his reform.

When Augustus became emperor the senate voted that the month after, then called Sextilus, should be named in his honour and thus it became Augustus. However, he did not like the fact that Augustus’s month had 30 days and Julius’s has 31 so they changed Augustus to 31 days, taking the extra day from February.

Solar, Lunar Calendar

The word calendar came into English from the Norman French language of the invaders: calender or calendier. They had borrowed it from the language of the ancient Romans  Latin kalendarium meant ‘account-book‘. The first day of the month, called kalendae, was when accounts were due and debts had to be paid. So it was all to do with money!

There are 3 basic calendar types : Solar, Lunar and Lunisolar. Remember that the moon takes 29 1/2 days to rotate around the Earth, while the Earth takes 365 1/4 days to rotate around the sun. 

Solar calendars measure the Earth’s relative position to the sun and are based on the cycles of the seasons. Like the 12-month calendar used by most of the world, these calendars typically chart the Earth as it makes a full rotation around the sun.

Lunar calendars chart the various phases of the moon, use lunations as calendar months. A lunation is the average length of the synodic month, the time between new moons, equal to about 29.53 days. They measure months and years by looking at the moon. Because there are about twelve lunations (synodic months) in a solar year, this period (354.37 days) is sometimes referred to as a lunar year. although most lunar calendars are actually hybrid “lunisolar” calendars that take both celestial bodies into account.

Even though the solar calendar is in common and legal use, lunar calendars serve to determine traditional holidays in parts of the world such as India, China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Nepal. Some examples include Diwali, Chinese New Year. Hence our Diwali does not fall on the same date!

How calendars changed

Ancient Roman Calendars

Legend has it that Romulus, the first king of Rome, devised a 10-month lunar calendar that began at the spring equinox in March and ended with December with 304 days, six of 30 days and four of 31 days, making a total of 304. Approximately 61 winter days (between December and March) were not assigned to any month. Calendar of Romulus was as follows with number of days in brackets():

Martius (31 days) Aprilis (30 days) Maius (31 days) Iunius (30 days) Quintilis (31 days)

Sextilis (30 days) Septembris (30 days) Octobris (31 days) Novembris (30 days) Decembris (30 days)

The second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius ,  around 700 BCE decided to make the calendar more accurate by syncing it up with the actual lunar year—which is about 354 days long. Numa added two months after December, January and February, to account for the new days. The new months each had 28 days. But that didn’t sit well with Numa because even numbers were considered bad luck at the time. So, he added a day on to January, giving the year an odd-numbered 355 day. No one knows why February was left with 28, it may be related to the fact that Romans honored the dead and performed rites of purification in February. (The word februare means “to purify” in the dialect of the ancient Sabine tribe.)

The 355-day calendar couldn’t stay in sync with the seasons because it didn’t account for the amount of time it took for the Earth to orbit the sun. So, an extra “intercalary” month of 27 days, called “Mercedinus“, was inserted after February 23 every couple of years to even things out. The pontiffs who were in charge of calendar upkeep didn’t always add the extra month on schedule. (Some officials took advantage of the system to extend their time in office 🙂 ) Roman Calendar of Numa Pompiliusis as follows

Common Year	Number of days		Leap Year	Number of days
Ianuarius	29		Ianuarius	29
Februarius	28		Februarius	23/24
Martius	31		Intercalaris	27/28
Aprilis	29		Martius	31
Maius	31		Aprilis	29
Iunius	29		Maius	31
Quintilis	31		Iunius	29
Sextilis	29		Quintilis	31
September	29		Sextilis	29
October	31		September	29
November	29		October	31
December	29		November	29
			December	29

Julian Calendar

Rome’s leader Julius Caesar reformed the calendar because it was a very confusing system and out of synchronisation with the actual seasons. In around 45 B.C., Julius Caesar commissioned an expert to put aside the lunar origins of the Roman calendar and make it sun-based, like the Egyptian one. Caesar got rid of Mercedinus completely, added 10 days to the calendar year .This system was called the Julian calendar. He created a calendar that more nearly matched the annual journey of the earth round the sun. There were twelve months with alternating lengths of 31 and 30 days. The exception was February which had 29 days and Leap years gave February 30 days to keep the calendar correct.  The senate had the month of Quintilius renamed July after Caesar as an honour to his reform. When Julius Caesar decided to put the Julian calendar into practice, he had to wait for the perfect time for the solar rotation to match the calendar date  as a result, the year 46 BC was 455 days long. Not surprisingly it was called the “year of confusion.”

When Augustus became emperor the senate voted that the month after, then called Sextilus, should be named in his honour and thus it became Augustus. However the senate did not like the fact that Augustus’s month had 30 days and Julius’s has 31 so they changed Augustus to 31 days, taking the extra day from February.

In the Julian calendar, the tropical year is approximated as 365¼ days = 365.25 days. This gives an error of 1 day in approximately 128 years. The approximation 365¼ is achieved by having 1 leap year every 4 years.  However, the 4-year rule was not followed in the first years after the introduction of the Julian calendar in 45 B.C.E. Due to a counting error, every 3rd year was a leap year in the first years of this calendar’s existence. The leap years were:

45 B.C.E., 42 B.C.E., 39 B.C.E., 36 B.C.E., 33 B.C.E., 30 B.C.E., 27 B.C.E., 24 B.C.E., 21 B.C.E., 18 B.C.E., 15 B.C.E., 12 B.C.E., 9 B.C.E., C.E. 8, C.E. 12, and every 4th year from then on.

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the calendar that is used throughout the world. It began to be used from 1582. It replaced the previous Julian calendar because the Julian Calendar had an error: it added a leap year (with an extra day every four years) with no exceptions. The length of the Julian year was exactly 365.25 days, but the actual time it takes for the Earth to go around the Sun once is closer to 365.2425 days. This difference is just over ten minutes each year.This made the seasons get out of track, since the real first day of spring in western Europe (the equinox – day and night the same length) was happening earlier and earlier before the traditional March 21 as the centuries went by.

By the 1500s, it was starting around March 11, ten days ‘too early’ according to the calendar. So they moved the calendar forward ten days in 1582, and at the same time to make sure it didn’t happen again, they made an exception to the previous ‘leap year rule’ (add February 29 every four years) There would be no February 29 for every year that ends in 00 – unless it could be divided by 400. So, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, and 2200 are not leap years. But 1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years. It was first suggested by the Neapolitan doctor Aloysius Lilius, and was made official by Pope Gregory XIII, for whom it was named, on February 24, 1582. Ref: The Gregorian Calendar

The history of April Fool’s Day or All Fool’s Day is uncertain, but the current thinking is that it began around 1582 in France with the reform of the calendar under Charles IX. The Gregorian Calendar was introduced, and New Year’s Day was moved from March 25 – April 1 (new year’s week) to January 1. Communication traveled slowly in those days and some people were only informed of the change several years later. Still others, who were more rebellious refused to acknowledge the change and continued to celebrate on the last day of the former celebration, April 1. These people were labeled “fools” by the general populace, were subject to ridicule and sent on “fool errands,” sent invitations to nonexistent parties and had other practical jokes played upon them. The butts of these pranks became known as a “poisson d’avril” or “April fish” because a young naive fish is easily caught. In addition, one common practice was to hook a paper fish on the back of someone as a joke. (Ref: Wikipedia April’s Fool Day“)

Latin

A lot of languages, including English, use month names based on Latin. Infact English has acquired much of its vocabulary from the Romans. For example

Latin Word	Definition	English Derivatives
alta	tall, high, deep	altitude, altimeter, alto
terra	land, earth	terrier, terrace, terrestrial, terrain
multa	many	multitude, multiple, multiplex
circum	around	circumstance, circumnavigate, circumspect

Checkout Latin Influence in English  or English words with Latin roots. Latin was the language of ancient Rome and its empire. Latin comes from Latium,which is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Latin has been the vehicle of culture, literature, philosophy, law, religion, medicine, the sciences, and much more. Through most of European history, whenever authors wrote something they wanted the whole world to be able to read and, more importantly, they wanted to remain permanent forever, they wrote in Latin such as Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, Sepulveda’s account of Columbus’ voyages to the New World, and Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbius Coelestium.

Meaning of Name of the months

In Latin “ary” means pertaining to, “us” means of , “ber” is simply a suffix. Name of months are as follows :

JANUARY: Named for Janus, the Roman the Roman God of gates and doorways. Janus is represented as having two faces, looking in opposite directions. It comes from Latin Januarius Janus + arius  which means month pertaining to Janus.(ary  is pertaining to)

FEBRUARY: This name is derived from Februa, a Roman festival of purification. In Latin Februarius  is Februa + arius which means month pertaining to Februa

MARCH: It is named for Mars, the Roman mighty one of war. Apparently, wars took a break during the harsh winter months, but March was a good time to return to the battlefield. In addition, there was a festival for the war god during this month. Mars was especially honored because he was considered to be the father of Romulus, the founder of Rome. Latin word is Martius is  Mars + us which means of Mars.

APRIL:  A little confusion on this one. April may derive from the Latin aprire meaning to open as this is the time of year when buds began to open. However, another theory is that the month is named for Aphrodite, whom we know more often as Venus. The name could come from Aphrilis or from Apru (the Etruscan equivalent of Venus/Aphrodite)

MAY: This month was named for Maia, the Roman female deity of growth(spring, fertility). It comes from Latin Maius which is Maia + us which is “of Maia”

JUNE: This name is attributed to Juno, queen of Roman goddesses and married to Jupiter (in Greek, Hera and Zeus). She was considered a protectorate of the Roman state.  It comes from Latin Junius  which is Juno + us which is month of Juno. (infact word money also comes from Juno Moneta)

JULY: Named after Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.E. Prior to that time its name was Quintilis from the word quintus  which means fifth, because it was the 5th month in the old Roman calendar.

AUGUST: Named for Octavius Augustus Caesar, emperor of Rome; the name was originally from augure, which means, “to increase.” This month was formerly named Sextilis, the sixth month of old Roman Calendar.

SEPTEMBER: This name is derived from the Latin septem meaning seven (remember septagon in geometry), so September is simply the 7th month as per the old Roman calendar which started in March.

OCTOBER This name comes from the Latin root octo, meaning eight (octagon and octopus!) thus, 8th month. Which you now know it originally was, way back in the 40′s B.C.

NOVEMBER: This name is derived from Latin novem, meaning ninth. Its name remained intact even after January and February were added to the Roman calendar.

DECEMBER: This name comes from the Latin decem, meaning ten (think decathalon, decimate, decagon) 10th month in old Roman calendar which now is the 12th.

Meaning of Days of the week

The days of the week were named after Norse gods and giant objects in the sky.(The Norse were Viking warriors. The Vikings were Scandinavian farmers, fishers, herders and pirates whose raids and invasions from Russia to North America between roughly 800-1000 AD helped shape the medieval period of the region) These names came originally from the Greeks and Romans, who named the days of the week after their gods. The Anglo-Saxons, who invaded Britain hundreds of years ago, adopted this idea but substituted their own gods. The English language has inherited and changed those names a bit, but the ones we use today resemble those names. More details at Wikipedia’s Names of the days of the week 

Sunday: Sun’s Day. The Sun gave people light and warmth every day. They decided to name the first (or last) day of the week after the Sun.

Monday: Moon’s Day. The Moon was thought to be very important in the lives of people and their crops.

Tuesday: Tiw’s Day. Tiw, or Tyr, was a Norse god known for his sense of justice.

Wednesday: Woden’s Day. Woden, or Odin, was a Norse god who was one of the most powerful of them all.

Thursday: Thor’s Day. Thor was a Norse god who wielded a giant hammer.

Friday: Frigg’s Day. Frigg was a Norse god equal in power to Odin.

Saturday: Seater’s Day or Saturn’s Day. Saturn was a Roman god.

Origin of the word Money

In 390 BC, Juno Moneta,Queen of Jupiter and Heaven, and Mother to the Roman Gods. was worshipped as a harbringer of warnings and it was thanks to the cackling of the sacred geese housed in the temple that the Romans learnt of a Gaulish night attack. In 344 BC, Lucius Furius built a temple which was dedicated to Juno Moneta. To this temple was attached the first Roman mint. The coins which were struck there were called moneta from whence comes our word money. Our webpage Introduction to money explains what is money and how it has evolved and our webpage Myth and Money talks about Kuber (Hindu God of Wealth),Lakhsmi (Hindu God of fortune), Chinese, Tibetan, Greek and Roman God of money and how even US currency says “In God we trust”

Related article:

• Introduction to money
• Myth and Money
• Hindi movies and money
• DhanTeras : Myth Behind Celebrations
• Videos on Money

 

There are so many things we just accept like name of the days, months without finding out why is it so!(And not everything is covered in school ) And then kids questions make us find the information. Just a request to advertisement makers (please don’t leave the question un-answered)