Ever Wondered Why February Has 28 Days?

Haven’t you ever wondered why February has just 28 days and in leap year too just 29 days, but never 30 days? I am sure this question occurs to every living person once in his lifetime.

Well there are two legends to end your curiosity-

– Legend one says, it was Romans who made the first calendar. Their calendar was actually quite similar to what we use today, but with some exceptions like they didn’t have the month of February. In fact, the calendar by the Romans had only 10 months, which actually added up to only 304 days for a year. Surprised! It’s just started…

The legend adds that it was King Numa Pompillius who further added two months i.e. January and February to the calendar. In spite of this addition, the year still added up to only 12 lunar cycles and 355 days. The solar year still fell short of 10 to 11 days. In order to rectify this error, the King added another month then known as Mercedinus.

This new calendar was close enough to the first one too, but still wasn’t working in correspondence to the lunar cycle.

Julius Caesar in his turn not only chose to ignore the calendar but also removed the month of Mercedinus. It was he who gave February 28 days, with the exception of every four years where this month will have 29 days i.e. in the leap year. This new calendar worked perfectly with a total of exactly 365 and ¼ days.

This is why the calendar we today use is also frequently referred to as the Julian calendar.

– Legend two though states that, jealousy gave birth to February and with only 28 days. It is believed that Augustus Caesar’s birthday (after whom month of August is named) was in August which had only 30 days then, while Julius Caesar’s birthday was in July, which had 31 days. So, one day was taken away from February and added in August to equal it with July. This left February with just 28 days except in the leap year.

Did you know?

The main purpose of our ancestors to invent the calendar was to help them in farming. They wanted to mark those days which were the best for planning of certain crops.